Despite being completely unarmed, 29-year-old Mark Duggan was lawfully killed by the police, a UK jury ruled by a majority of eight to two on Wednesday. The shooting of the Londoner in August 2011 provoked the worst riots in the country’s modern history.
With the same eight-to-two margin, the jury decided that Duggan
had been weaponless when he was surrounded by the officers.
However, the majority in the jury concluded that the man
“threw” the gun from a cab just before being stopped by
the police.
Duggan was suspected of being a gang member, with officers
stating that he collected a weapon in east London just before the
incident happened.
He was shot twice after he got out of the taxi, with one bullet
going through his arm and another delivering a lethal wound to
the chest.
The gun became central to the inquest as it had been found
several meters away from Duggan’s body, wrapped in a sock, with
no fingerprints on it.
Duggan’s family and defense were shocked with the jury’s
decision, calling it perverse and promising to consider seeking a
judicial review.
“It’s unbelievable. That’s just about what I can say for
now,” Shaun Hall, Duggan’s brother, told the Guardian
newspaper.
“The jury found that he had no gun in his hand and yet he was
gunned down. For us that's an unlawful killing,” Marcia
Willis Stewart, the family’s lawyer, said.
The statement by Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, Mark
Rowley, was barely heard due to a large crowd outside the court
shouting: “Who killed Mark Duggan?” and
“murderers.”
“It’s significant” that a jury of Londoners concluded that
“Mark Duggan had a gun, and also that our officer had an
honest and reasonable belief that Mark Duggan still had the gun
when he shot him,” Rowley stressed.
The police boss also said that he is willing to meet with the
Duggan family “to express our sorrow,” to the people,
who “lost a loved one”.
A protest over Mark Duggan’s killing on August 6, 2011 led to
clashes with the police, sparking several days of riots in London
and other English towns.
Mass looting, arson and violence ended only on August 11, with
over 1,000 people later charged in connection with the
disturbance.