The IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) announced yesterday the findings of it’s investigation into the shooting of Mark Duggan on Thursday 4th of August and they make some disturbing reading. It turns out that the hand gun found at the scene that supposedly belonged to Duggan had not been fired and that the bullet lodged in the injured police officer’s radio was a ‘jacketed round’ – ie, one that came from an MPS Heckler and Koch MP5, the gun the police used to kill Duggan.
In any normal situation, this should be huge news – the police shoot a man to death in public in broad daylight, lie that he fired at them first to justify it and then refuse to talk to the community, sparking a riot. It’s appalling. But of course, the nature of these riots has changed – they’re no longer about Duggan and the police, they’re about what happens when a society that has had a dog-eat-dog consumerist philosophy shoved down it’s throat takes away all safety nets and opportunities from young people, destroys all sense of community and solidarity and leaves force as the only deterrent. We have seen ugly, indefensible things happen over the last few day, but don’t let the mainstream media’s obsession with witch hunts and damage done the economy distract you from the fact – state brutality, years of it both physical and not, started this.