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ARMED POLICE IN London will wear video cameras to record their actions, the force said as it sought today to calm tensions over the inquest into the fatal shooting of a man by firearms officers.
Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe was due to meet with community leaders to discuss yesterday’s inquest verdict that the 2011 killing of suspected gangster Mark Duggan was lawful.
Duggan’s family reacted with fury to the verdict and vowed to continue fighting for justice for the father of six, whose death sparked nights of rioting across English cities.
Hogan-Howe welcomed the inquest jury’s decision but acknowledged the shooting had led to a “significant reduction in trust between London’s black communities” and police.
Efforts had been made to improve relations, he said, for example by reforming the use of stop and search so it no longer disproportionately targeted men from ethnic minorities.
“But we need to do more, much more, to improve our relationships with black Londoners,” he said.
Body-worn video cameras
He added: “We’ll begin a trial this year in which firearms officers are issued with body-worn video cameras to record the actions of officers and those they are dealing with.
“We want to see if this is an effective way to record evidence and ensure public confidence.”
Police are braced for protests in Tottenham, the deprived area of north London where Duggan was shot, but a demonstration late Wednesday dispersed without any trouble.
Supporters had reacted angrily to the inquest verdict after the jury concluded Duggan had had a gun when police stopped the taxi he was travelling in but threw it out of the vehicle seconds before he was gunned down by a police marksman.
The coroner in the inquest accepted that the jury was faced with a “stark problem” because police officers’ notes contradicted video evidence from the scene about the location of the gun.
Duggan’s brother shouted obscenities at jurors as they left court while other supporters screamed “murderers”.
‘Executed’
In highly-charged scenes outside the court, Duggan’s aunt, Carole, said he had been “executed” and vowed to fight the verdict, but on Thursday she called for calm.
“This has got to be dealt with the right way, through the courts,” she told BBC radio, saying the family wanted to see “no more demonstrations, no more violence”.
“We will have to fight this, go through the struggle peacefully, through the right channels, to get justice,” she said.
Police believe Duggan was a member of one of Europe’s most dangerous gangs, but he had never been convicted of a major offence.
- © AFP 2014.
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What are the Catalans actually at now? They just seem to be ars*ing around
@Franklin Roosevelt: He knows that the split between the separatists and unionists is too fine to call an election he could very well lose.
@Mick Jordan: well, the problem is that Abby election would be a de facto independence referendum. The separatist movement would probably win and Madrid would suspend autonomy again. They were waiting for promised guarantees from Madrid to respect any election result. Madrid refused
@Paul Devlin: I’m not sure the seperatists would win. He has pretty much clocked everything up since the day after the referendum. Has come off very indecisive and almost afraid to act.
@Dave O Keeffe: or unwilling to ratchet up the tension to the point of violence. That’s Madrid’s way. Every violent or coercive blow the Spanish government lands leads another section of the Catalan people to the separatist camp
@Paul Devlin: I agree, but if he wanted a result he should have gone for it two weeks ago when people were already being brutalised by Madrid.
He is out of his depth. Think of the Grand Old Duke of York.
he’s just making an eejit of himself at this stage.. I think the momentum is just gone now &the govt in Madrid must be just loving watching this now
FLIP-FLOP. No wonder SF claim such an affinity to this party.
He knows they will be outcasted by Europe.. dopey stunt he played
@cormac o neill: they’d have a few friends at first, maybe some Scandinavian and Eastern European countries. The UK if Corbyn gets elected even.
Then the nation of Catalonia will become just the new normal and conservatives in Ireland, Britain and beyond will then pretend “Oh yeah, we were always cool with that idea”
Farcical. End of.
This chap is all over the place, get on with it
Just declare independence already.
lol. The head of the catalan fascist government seems to be Lost…
@La Massa: Fascist?
@Malachi: yeah, a facist disgrace. A shame for Freedom and democracy… A bad joke.
Looks like he bottled it
Eeny Meeny Money Mo. Catch a blackbird by the toe. If it squeals let it go eeny meaney miney mo….no election
I think he knows if he called a second election then the majority of the population would vote and the result wouldn’t be for independence.
Last time round most Catalan’s didn’t recognise the vote as legitimate and only the pro-
independence folk were motivated to vote.
Bit like the Easter Rising. Supported by very few, thought at the time to be crackpots and dreamers. Yet corrected history’s warm hand has made them out to be heroes.
This guy doesn’t seem to know the difference between his arse and his elbow.
have your say