LONDON: UK police watchdog Tuesday revealed that it found no
evidence that the man shot dead by police Thursday last had opened fire
at the police officers.
"At this stage there is no evidence
that the handgun found at the scene was fired during the incident,"
said the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in an update
on last Thursday’s fatal shooting in Tottenham, north London.
Duggan,
29, was travelling in a taxi when the vehicle was stopped by police
carrying out an arrest as part of a Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)
operation against gun crime within the black community.
The
IPCC said that two shots were fired by one firearms officer, and a
post-mortem examination revealed that Duggan received a gunshot wound
to the chest, which killed him, as well as a second gunshot wound to
his right bicep. A bullet was found lodged in one of the police
officers’ radios and a non-police issue handgun was also recovered from
the scene. Ballistics tests have now revealed that the bullet lodged in
the radio was police issue, "and, whilst it is still subject to DNA
analysis, it is consistent with having been fired from" a Heckler and
Koch MP5 gun used by the police.
The handgun found at the scene
was a converted BBM "Bruni" self-loading pistol, an illegal weapon, but
it was not used in the incident, the tests also reveal. Further
examination is being carried out.
The news confirms doubts
about the killing of the father of four, which raised tensions in
Tottenham, an ethnically mixed area with a long history of antagonism
between local residents and the police. The violence started in
Tottenham -- the ethnically diverse, working-class suburb north of
London’s centre whose residents are predominantly Afro-Caribbean --
after the shooting death Thursday of Mark Duggan, a black man, as he
was seated inside a cab. Officers from Operation Trident -- a
Metropolitan Police unit that deals with gun crime -- stopped the cab
during an attempted arrest. Soon afterward, shots were fired, the
Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said.
Duggan,
father of four, was killed. Shooting deaths are rare in England. The
commission divulged neither who shot Duggan nor why police had stopped
the cab, with the incident still under investigation. Some reports
suggested that Duggan was held down by police and shot in the head, but
the IPCC has denied this. "Speculation that Mark Duggan was
’assassinated’ in an execution style involving a number of shots to the
head are categorically untrue," the IPCC said in a statement.
The
IPCC said evidence from Thursday’s shooting scene, including a
non-police firearm, was to undergo forensic testing. The man’s family
and friends, who blamed police for the death, gathered Saturday night
outside the Tottenham police station to protest.
The protest
began peacefully but soon devolved into riots as demonstrators -- whose
numbers included whites and blacks -- tossed petrol bombs, looted
stores and burned police cars. Tottenham was the site of riots before.
In 1985, Floyd Jarrett, who was of Afro-Caribbean origin, was stopped
by police near the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham on suspicion of
driving with a forged tax disc, a document all British vehicles must
carry. A few hours later, officers raided the nearby home of his
mother, who collapsed and died during the raid. Rioting erupted shortly
afterward, and a police officer, Constable Keith Blakelock, was killed.
Like the current violence, a protest outside Tottenham Police Station
sparked the 1985 conflict.
Meanwhile, some 16,000 officers will
police London’s streets in a bid to prevent a fourth night of rioting.
The Met Police has cancelled leave and drafted in support from 30
forces. Shops and businesses in some areas are closing early in a bid
to avoid the kind of violence and looting that spread through London on
Monday. PM David Cameron has pledged to restore order, recalling
Parliament on Thursday in response to the "sickening scenes", which
prompted unrest in other cities.
The Metropolitan force has
released what it says will be the "first of many" CCTV images of
rioting suspects, while 32 people have appeared in court charged with
offences such as burglary and criminal damage during the previous
riots. Among them were a graphic designer, college students, a youth
worker, a university graduate and a man signed up to join the army.
Some gave non-London addresses. Eighteen were remanded in custody. So
far 563 people have been arrested and 105 charged in connection with
violence in the capital. Online
