No justice for black lives, whether shot dead or killed in custody

In the last 38 years there has been only one successful prosecution against police involved in the death of a black person.

The verdict by the IPCC last week that ruled no metropolitan police officers would be punished for shooting dead Derek Bennett in Brixton in June 2001, follows a disturbing trend where black people are killed in custody or shot dead with impunity.

Derek Bennett was 29 years old when he was killed six years ago in Brixton, after being shot four times by two police marksmen who believed he was carrying a gun, which turned out to be a cigarette lighter. In December 2004, an inquest ruled that he had been ‘lawfully killed,’ but in June 2005 his family won the right to challenge this verdict. However, as many had predicted, in February 2006, the High Court upheld the original inquest ruling which deemed that Bennett was lawfully killed.

Two weeks ago on June 26, the Court of Appeal refused permission for Bennett’s family to appeal against the Coroner’s decision and the IPCC have decided that no officers should be prosecuted as “there was no evidence of misconduct.” No doubt, many who support this verdict will argue that it was a close call for the police marksmen as they had no way of knowing that the cigarette lighter was not a real gun- but other cases that are much clearer cut have met with similar outcomes.

No one faced prosecution or disciplinary action for the murder of John Charles de Menezes, despite the very public unfolding of a case that involved incompetence and deceit, as lies were fed to the mainstream press to cover up the truth. Mikey Powell died in September 2003 and in August 2006, charges against officers from the West Midlands Police involved in his death were dropped. This is despite the use of excessive force by officers and the not insignificant fact that a car was deliberately driven at him, and when he lay dying on the ground none of the officers at the scene came to his assistance.

Azelle Rodney, Brian Douglas, Paul Coker, Joy Gardener, Godfrey Moyo; there are many, many other names that are on the list of black people who have been killed at the hands of the police, who have not been held accountable for their actions. In the last 38 years there has been only one successful prosecution against police involved in the death of a black person, and that was in 1969 when officers were convicted on nine charges of assault against Nigerian-born David Oluwale from Leeds.

By contrast, as Black Britain has continually reported, black communities are persistently targeted, criminalized, stopped and searched, arrested, charged and imprisoned at disproportionate levels that even usurp the punitive measures in the USA. The evidence therefore speaks for itself – the British state criminalizes black people in the UK, whilst at the same time seemingly having full powers to extinguish the lives of black individuals, whether in custody or being shot dead on the street, with complete impunity.