The Smoking Gun
I may be jumping the gun, so to speak, but a report by the Guardian on the IPCC’s preliminary findings suggest that Mark Duggan did not shoot at police before being killed by them last Thursday.
Presuming this to be truth, we now have evidence that a man has been shot dead by police without, in hindsight, justification. It has happened before, and will do again.
Only yesterday I highlighted the link between the rise in gun crime in Britain and the abolition of the death penalty in the 1950s. Yet, suggest forms of capital punishment should be reinstated, and some commentators such as Peter North (son of Dr Richard North) claim that they are ‘not comfortable giving government the power to kill people for any reason’.
‘Uncomfortable’ they might be; but by removing the death penalty, we have not somehow done away with state sanctioned killings, but simply exchanged one type of death for another. Clearly Mr Duggan was not entirely innocent. Though the exact details of events that led to his death are yet to become clear, he was found holding an illegal firearm. Yet, did he deserve to be killed for this crime?
Some may attempt to argue that police were in a difficult situation, and that accidents like this can happen in tense situations. They are right – but surely if that is true, and they are so concerned that the death penalty may result in the death of an innocent person, surely they would be equally concerned – if not more so – that an innocent person may be accidentally killed by the police?
The shooting of the innocent, or killing without intention become an inevitable part of policing once firearms have been issued. It sadly happened with Jean Charles de Menezes, and now it has happened with Mark Duggan. This is not to say that the cases of law-abiding de Menezes and apparently criminal Duggan are equivalent, or to condone the latter’s actions, but that neither deserved their fate.
Accidents are in our nature. We are imperfect beings, regardless of whether we are highly trained members of the police or seemingly ordinary blue collar workers. But we try to restrict our mistakes by ensuring proper procedures and practices are followed, so that they occur as infrequently as we can possibly manage.
This is why the death penalty is the preferable option to the arming of the police, which is, as I have already said, the real consequence of abolishing capital punishment. Mark Duggan was, to all intents and purposes, executed by the police last week – but crucially he was killed without trial, a judge, a jury, a right to defence or repeal.
Duggan’s trial (as we could call it) occurred in the minds of one or perhaps more officers, who weighed up the situation and evidence before them, acting presumably under pressure and forced to make a split second decision over life and death. By comparison, this is a world away from the far more precise, measured and reasonable process of the courts and judicial system.
In a court, Mr Duggan (or a person accused of murder) would have had the benefit of being innocent until proven guilty. He would have been tried by a Judge and heard by a Jury under strict rules of law and procedures. There would have been prosecution and defence, the right of repeal and the fairness of an open hearing. And if after proper judicial examination a man were found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers, and sentenced to death for his crime, this would be a much fairer and more just system of punishment than being shot by an armed police officer.
Your Comments:
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- Moho316
This seems to be a very similar article to your earlier one and again with a lot of oversights. I am particularly surprised as to why in the light of evidence that Mr. Duggan did not shoot first at police that it should make you assume that they had no ‘justification’ for the shooting and that therefore it must have been as you put it an ‘accident’. Whilst the police are no means perfect and accidents are made by all, this was most certainly no accident. Clearly what you do not realize is that police officers do not actually have to wait for one of their own to be shot dead before they can discharge a weapon. Thankfully this is not the case or I would say the numbers of serving officers killed over the years would be quite a lot higher than it is now.
The fact is that this man was carrying an illegal handgun and if any of those officers felt that he was going to use it on of them it was absolutely right that they took the necessary ‘pre-emptive’ shot which was completely justified. I would argue that if they had not done this and he had in fact had a feasible firearm and shot one of the officers then that would indeed have been the ‘accident’. Police are given powers to use reasonable force and it is almost certainly this model which is used in firearms situations. In my opinion if you have a dangerous man who was the subject of a surveillance operation with relation to serious crime who then produces a firearm then I would say in terms of the reasonable force that can be used, the sky is the limit. They would have absolutely no way of knowing whether the firearm was real or replica and that decision to shoot would have been a split second one. But it was most definitely no accident and based on their training.
You also keep referring to Mr. Duggan as an innocent person. I find this quite peculiar and hope you are never asked to sit on a jury. The male was carrying an illegal firearm as was guilty of that – therefore he was not innocent and you do not need a court of law to establish guilt on that particular fact. It was him carrying that weapon and his decision to arm himself in that way that cost him his life and certainly not actions of any officer who shot him whilst doing his job and carrying out his duties to protect. As for whether the man in question was guilty of any more than possession of an illegal weapon, which is a likely possibility, is completely irrelevant. He denied himself any opportunity to a fair trial in relation to that when he made the conscious decision to carry an illegal firearm on his person.
Furthermore you state that death penalty is the preferable option to the arming of the police. Apart from the fact abolishment of capital punishment has had very little to do with the rise in gun crime what you clearly do not realize that these are two very different things. The death penalty may be a good deterrent, but you will believe it or not still need someone to enforce this and take on those involved in gun crime. If you think you are going to get unarmed officers to do this you are quite simply deluded and under your proposals we would have a system by which people faced the death penalty if caught but no-one to actually catch them… bit of a problem there!
On a more serious note around your bizarre criticisms of the armed police, if we were to go ahead and re-instate the death penalty and rid ourselves of these armed officers, I would like to know what you would say to the victims’ families when the next Derek Bird decides to go on the rampage because I can tell you now without armed police he would have killed a lot more than twelve. Whilst you may choose to belittle and look down on these ‘blue collared’ workers who you clearly think you are better than, I think you’ll find we need them more than you think and certainly more than any re-introduction of capital punishment.
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‘Particularly surprised’ you may be, but there was no justification in hindsight for the police shooting Mark Duggan dead. Let’s be clear – they did not just shoot him, but killed him. As I said previously, if the police are armed then it doesn’t matter whether they are trained to subdue their target through use of firearms or not, lives will still be lost by design and by accident. The nature of such operations can be incredibly imprecise. Take the police bullet lodged in the radio of one officer. If Mark Duggan did not fire this bullet, as now appears to be the case, then the police very nearly and unintentionally injured or killed one of their own men.
I didn’t realise I had referred to Mark Duggan as innocent. If you re-read what I have written then you will see I refer to his death as a ‘killing without intention’. He was found to be carrying a firearm without licence. In that he may have been guilty – though the courts were never given the actual opportunity to decide – but my point has been whether the crime of carrying a firearm should be punishable by death? From your statement, ‘It was him carrying that weapon and his decision to arm himself in that way that cost him his life’, you clearly believe it should be, but I do not.
We have (at least in theory – the EU usurpation of our law and legal system aside) the presumption of innocence in this country. Thus, to arm the police and allow them to become in effect judge, jury and executioner is not in keeping with the traditions of a free and just society. I am also interested in your claim that the abolition of the death penalty has ‘very little’ to do with the rise in gun crime. Do you have any evidence for said declaration? And of course there will sadly always be gun crime, even if we did somehow re-introduce the death penalty, but I believe it would be significantly reduced by the deterrent of the noose. Are you telling me you believe there is no means by which armed criminals can be detained or stopped other than through the use of firearms in return? Negotiation, non-lethal weapons? Criminals are, generally speaking, calculating – particularly those with the will and means to acquire firearms.
As for Derek Bird, then judging by the reports it appears he always intended to commit suicide after his violent spree. How do you know ‘He would have killed a lot more than twelve’? He had already turned his gun on himself before police caught up with him – armed or otherwise.
There are decent people within the police, but they are overwhelmed by the greater bureaucracy and the politically correct nature of the institution. Like so many other organisations and walks of life, these people do not speak out because they are worried about their own careers and lives and therefore the rot continues. I hardly think it looking down on ‘blue collared workers’ to suggest the above.
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- Moho316
It appears that you have now decided to change the stance of your argument. Initially you stated that you felt the increase in gun crime had been due to the abolition of the death penalty. I was not arguing the pros and cons of the death penalty but instead only trying to point out that you had missed the major contributing factor that has led to the gun crime epidemic – namely immigration since the 1950s. I made this very clear in the other post (which you have chosen not to reply to) I stated ‘I am not saying I am against the death penalty (which for the purpose of this argument is irrelevant anyway) but it is simply absurd to suggest that it’s abolition was [mainly] responsible’.
As for your question, ‘Are you telling me you believe there is no means by which armed criminals can be detained or stopped other than through the use of firearms in return?’ The answer is quite frankly yes I am! I would not dream of asking anyone who is unarmed to stop or apprehend an armed suspect unless they had sufficient means to defend themselves. The only effective means by which to do this is to have armed capability within the police forces. These officers would only every discharge a weapon. The statistics prove this. In the year 2007-08, there were 6,780 authorised Firearms Officers, 21,181 police operations in which firearms were authorised throughout England and Wales and 7 incidents where conventional firearms were used. Yet not one member of the public was killed. This shows how police can carry out over 20,000 ‘firearms operations’ which is now doubt significantly impacts gun crime without a single loss of life. I fail to see how you are going to implement a better system. Even if you re-introduced the death penalty tomorrow, if you got rid of the armed police at the same time I have no doubt gun crime would rise showing how weak your argument really is. As I have said before without a means of enforcing a punishment, the punishment itself is pointless.
With regards to your comments on Derek Bird you may be correct and I would agree his intention was to commit suicide. However had it not been for the deterrent of armed police closing in it is no doubt more lives would have been lost. This is also illustrated in the case of Raoul Moat.
If you have interest in replying to this I suggest that first you consider replying to the “inevitable outcome” post where these points are further explained.
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I have been busy, but shall reply to (all) your messages in due course.
