Vol. 78/No. 41      November 17, 2014

“This is the 16th memorial march by families who have lost loved ones at the hands of the state,” Marcia Rigg told the crowd, holding up a list of 3,180 names of people who died between 1969 and 2011 in the hands of cops, prison guards, immigration agents or psychiatric ward personnel. “No state agent has been convicted,” she said. Rigg’s brother Sean died in the Brixton police station after being restrained by cops in 2008. The family has uncovered evidence that contradicts police accounts.

“This has been a big eye-opener for us,” said Ajmal Ali, whose cousin Rubel Ahmed, 26, from Bangladesh, died in the Morton Hall immigration detention center Sept. 5. “His only crime was not having the right passport.”

According to fellow inmates, Ahmed had complained about chest pains and banged on the cell door for an hour, but received no response from guards. The family learned of the death when another inmate contacted Ahmed’s solicitor (lawyer). They were later told by the Home Office that Ahmed had committed suicide.

Liberty Louise, spokesperson for the justice for Leon Briggs campaign, told the rally how Briggs died Nov. 4, 2013, after being detained under the Mental Health Act. He was taken to the police station “even though there was an ambulance at hand,” she said.

An inquest into his death was suspended on the pretext that the government’s Independent Police Complaints Commission had to conduct its investigation first. “These are delay tactics they’ve used with every single family,” she said.

Among the speakers was Carole Duggan, aunt of Mark Duggan, who was killed by police in Tottenham, north London, in 2011. An inquest found the cop’s shooting “lawful” even though Duggan was unarmed. On Oct. 14 the High Court dismissed the family’s legal challenge to the inquest. “This verdict gives police the right to kill any young man, no questions asked. We won’t accept this,” Duggan said.

“We’re not going away,” said Duggan, a sentiment voiced by many others, including Doreen Bishop, mother of Ricky Bishop; Ajibola Lewis, mother of Olaseni Lewis; Dot Thomas, mother of Jason Thompson; Tippa Naphtali, cousin of Mikey Powell; and Jan Butler, mother of Lloyd Butler.

“I’ll fight until I don’t have strength, until there is justice for Joy and all the others,” said Myrna Simpson, the mother of Joy Gardner, who died in 1993 four days after cops broke into her north London home to deport her. Officers 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 cops were acquitted of manslaughter charges in 1995.

Alex Awotunde was attending his first protest. “I started looking around for things like this after I was assaulted by police when I was celebrating my 21st birthday last August,” he told the Militant. Four officers pinned him down outside a nightclub, pushing his face to the ground, then kicked him into the back of a police van. “It got me thinking. Anything could have happened.”  
 
 
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