Vol. 77/No. 41      November 18, 2013

According to the charitable organization INQUEST, since 1990 nearly 1,500 have died in England and Wales while in police custody, or “otherwise following contact with the police.” INQUEST reports no successful prosecutions in that time.

In the 15th such protest organized by the United Families and Friends Campaign, about 200 demonstrators marched from Trafalgar Square to the residence of Prime Minister David Cameron on Downing Street.

“We will not be brushed aside,” Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett told participants. In 1992, her twin brother Leon Patterson died at the age of 31 in a police jail after being denied urgently needed medical care for six days.

Becky Shah, whose mother was among the 96 killed by actions of police at a soccer stadium in Sheffield in 1989 in what is commonly referred to as the “Hillsborough disaster,” also spoke. The original “accidental death” ruling was overturned and new inquests are scheduled for next year.

“I’m here still fighting after 20 years,” Myrna Simpson told the Militant. Simpson is the mother of Joy Gardner, who died in 1993 four days after cops broke into her north London home to deport her. They bound and gagged the 40-year-old Jamaican woman in front of her 5-year-old son, using body belts and 13 feet of tape wrapped around her head. Three officers were acquitted of manslaughter charges in 1995.

“It’s hard to believe this can happen in a country like Britain,” said Ajibola Lewis, whose son Olaseni Lewis was killed in 2010 after being restrained by 11 cops. “It’s worth the fight, we can’t give up, we can’t let them get away with it.” In August the High Court invalidated a 2011 investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission — which effectively exonerated the police from the outset — and ordered a new inquiry.

“They treated Sean like a dog, not a human being,” Marcia Rigg told the rally. Her brother Sean died half-naked on a concrete floor in the Brixton police station in 2008. As a result of the family’s unrelenting fight for the truth in face of police obstruction, many of the facts surrounding his death have come to light. A year ago an inquest jury heavily criticized the police and in April a separate review slammed the IPCC’s conduct of the investigation.

Another speaker was Jo Orchard, whose brother Thomas Orchard, 32, died last year, a week after a restraining belt was tied over his mouth in Exeter.

In July, an inquest jury reached an “unlawful killing” verdict in the case of Jimmy Mubenga, who was killed in 2010 by private security guards who abusively restrained him in the process of his deportation to Angola.

Police testimony at the ongoing inquest of the August 2011 shooting of Mark Duggan in North London is full of lies, Carole Duggan, Mark’s aunt, told protesters. The killing of Duggan, who was shot after police stopped his taxi, sparked a protest nearby in Tottenham, followed by riots across London and other cities.

Also among the protesters were family members of Anthony Grainger, who was unarmed and sitting in a car when he was shot dead by Greater Manchester Police in March 2012. The family has condemned the leaking of an IPCC report on the shooting. Possible criminal charges are still pending.

Meanwhile, a public inquiry into the shooting of Azelle Rodney in London in 2005 — described by his mother as “an execution” — rejected the account of the cop who killed him and concluded he had no legal justification for opening fire.
 
 
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