BY SHELLIA KENNEDY AND CAROLINE BELLAMY
LONDON - "From the time of my son's murder the police
attitude toward my family and people in the Black community
has been disgraceful," said Doreen Lawrence. She was speaking
on June 29 after police sprayed CS gas at supporters trying
to force their way into an inquiry into the investigation and
prosecution of the killing of her son, Stephen.
Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old student, was murdered in April 1993 in Eltham, southeast London. The inquest jury returned a verdict of "unlawful killing in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths."
After the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring the case to trial due to lack of evidence, the Lawrence family brought a private prosecution against five white youths. The case against two of them was dropped at the committal stage and the prosecution of the other three collapsed when the court ruled identification evidence inadmissible.
The current inquiry has centered on the fact that the five suspects were not arrested until two weeks after the murder, despite subsequent police admissions that there was enough evidence to arrest them three days after the killing. Lawyers for the Lawrences suggest that the delay in making arrests may have allowed evidence to be destroyed.
Some 600 people attended the hearing June 29, in response to calls by the Lawrence family to show their support. Crowds of uniformed cops used metal detectors to search those entering the inquiry room. When police refused entry to members of the Nation of Islam, those waiting tried to force their way in and the police sprayed CS gas amid scuffles. Thirty members of the Nation of Islam also stormed the hearing room as the first suspect took the stand. The following day there was a small riot as 100 protesters fought police protecting the suspects. Bottles, cans, and other missiles were thrown as the five left the inquiry.
Doreen Lawrence told the inquiry that from the outset she believed that racism permeated the murder inquiry. "I believe because the police spent so much time investigating my family and Stephen...they were trying to prove that Stephen was involved in something and was not attacked just for being Black," she said. "It was like you have to be a criminal if you are Black."
When Stephen Lawrence died in the hospital, police asked his friend Duwayne Brooks, who was with him at the time of the attack, who they had started trouble. "I told them we didn't start trouble with anyone," Brooks said. "Another officer asked `Are you sure they called you niggers?' They asked if I had a criminal record and if Stephen had a criminal record."
The lack of firm evidence against the suspects has been blamed on a predominantly white community that had "seen nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing." However, 26 people gave the names of the suspects, including a woman who told the Lawrences that on the night of the murder four of them had washed blood off themselves in her house. Doreen Lawrence said that when she gave Detective Chief Superintendent William Ilsley the names she saw him crumple the note in his hand. A man had seen the killing from a passing bus and said he could identify some of the suspects, but he was not interviewed immediately.
A police sergeant played a key role in undermining the eyewitness evidence of Duwayne Brooks. Sergeant Christopher Crowley claimed that Brooks had revealed to him that he had only picked out suspect Luke Knight from an identity parade after being told what he looked like, and that Brooks and Knight had gone to school together. Brooks has always refuted Crowley's version of events. It was subsequently revealed that Brooks did not go to school with any of the murder suspects.
The ruling class is using the almost universal respect for the continuing fight of Neville and Doreen Lawrence and condemnation of the murder, as well as the blatantly racist attitudes of the five suspects, to push workers to accept attacks on democratic rights. The transcript of a video, made by a police spy camera, was read at the inquiry, showing three of the suspects using extremely racist and thuggish language and practicing stabbing people with a knife.
After the collapse of the private prosecution in 1997, the Daily Mail published the pictures of the five suspects under the headline, "Murderers," and called for the law that forbids the trying of one person twice for the same crime to be repealed. The Voice, a Black weekly newspaper, noted that such an action could make it easier for Blacks to be framed up even if they had been acquitted in a court.
In another attack on democratic rights, Home Secretary Jack Straw has used the events surrounding the Lawrence inquiry to justify continuing the ban on Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, from entering Britain.
Caroline Bellamy is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union. Shellia Kennedy is a member of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union.