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Vol. 78/No. 13      April 7, 2014

 
Rally marks 2nd anniversary
of killing by cops in England
 
BY DAG TIRSÉN  
MANCHESTER, England — Some 50 people gathered in the city center here March 2 for a vigil and rally on the second anniversary of the police killing of Anthony Grainger. Grainger was unarmed in his car in Culcheth village near Manchester when he was gunned down.

The action was organized by the Justice4Grainger campaign.

“With the support of the government, they think they have the right to go out and kill,” said Carole Duggan, who spoke about the killing of her nephew Mark Duggan by cops in 2011.

The killing of Duggan triggered protests and riots in several cities. In January an inquest jury ruled Duggan’s killing as “lawful,” despite the established fact that he had no weapon at the time.

On Jan. 16, a few days after the Duggan ruling, the Manchester Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge the cop who shot Grainger. Instead, it charged Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police Peter Fahy under the Health and Safety at Work Act for “failing to ensure that unnecessary risk to the suspects was avoided.” He will not have to appear in court and “does not share the criminal liability,” reported Salfordstar.com.

“Fahy won’t pay a thing and the money will go straight back to the same justice system,” said Wesley Ahmed, Grainger’s cousin, who chaired the rally.

Also speaking was Janet Alder, whose brother Christopher Alder, 37, was choked to death by cops in a Hull police detention center in 1998. An inquest jury in 2000 ruled the killing “unlawful,” but the five cops involved were acquitted on manslaughter charges two years later. In 2011 Hull city officials confirmed that the Alder family was given someone else’s body for burial. Participants were encouraged to attend an April 5 action in Hull to protest the police cover-up and killing of Alder.

“The killings by the police were not mistakes, not police departments out of control,” Pete Clifford from the Communist League told participants. “It is part of a system that criminalizes the working class. It goes hand in hand with the erosion of the legal aid system, moves toward limiting jury trials and plans for 100-year sentences.”

Caroline Bellamy contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Deaths in NY jail draw attention to reality of US capitalist ‘justice’
 
 
 
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