Hundreds.
Buckinghamshire is going bonkers.

No system will ever be perfect if this is the downside of an effective protection system for the citizens so be it.

Perhaps his general disregard of the rules required to run a reasonably civilised society worked against him - he knew the risks.

Worth repeating again what I mentioned a few pages back - everyone should run a quick google search for a list of police officers who have been shot whilst on active duty - all of those officers were unarmed and simply doing a day-job, knocking on doors after a minor complaint, walking down a street in Bradford when they find themselves in the middle of a bank raid and still try to get involved, etc, etc, etc - and some of them were volunteers.

Let the UK police force go on strike for a week and lets see what sort of society we descend into.

The fact the police have a very difficult task and the fact that they make such a remarkable job of carrying out that job is not really in question by anyone unless they have had a bad experience or have a grievance against them.
Also the stats show that their record is exemplary.
Incidents like the Duggan one are rare, very rare.
However, there is enough here to compel the authorities to learn from this incident.
There can be no objection surely to looking at methods of operation, public trust and transparency with a view to improvement.
I am hopeful that this happens as a matter of course anyway.
I don't want to see officers put on trial for everything they do, they are not the villains, but they must have proper, transparent systems in place that reduce the possibilities of collusion when bad mistakes are made.
These are not sufficiently robust at the moment and that is the reason for the lack of trust by some people.
That is something the police can address.

The thing is - that is already the case although as you say its often an internal enquiry by another police force, but each armed incident where a weapon is fired is investigated, officers are often suspended pending the enquiry and at that point their career is in jeopardy.

The ultimate arbiter is the inquest and that is what we had in the Duggan case, a complex enquiry presented before a jury of citizens who are then asked to decide on a series of questions and legal principles - the fact that the verdict has not matched expectation from some people is irrelevant, we didn't ask the police to judge their own here and I don't think its a case of a lack of trust in the legal process that we already have, rather than preconceptions of murder and executions that in reality are shown to be just ridiculous.

So nothing yet then?

I totally agree that to suggest that the police execute people like the Duggan relatives and friends did is absurd.
The jury came to a verdict based on the evidence presented to them and a lot of it is taken on trust particularly if it comes from authority.
It's what happen before that that interests me, and as you say the police weren't trying themselves here.
However, now, they have hindsight and they should indeed in a non-legalistic way try themselves to see where things went wrong ... and things did go badly wrong from some people's viewpoint.

There were according to reports 11 firearms officers sitting in a room together for three hours writing accounts of the incident.

But if there are 11, and only 1 shooting, would the other 10 actively lie to protect him/her.

You're telling me that not one would have the integrity to tell the truth?

All it would take is that one differing account or that one person to say NO THIS IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

I work in a team currently, there are 15 of us, off those, 3 I socialise with beyond work and of the remaining 12, 7 I have a very good working relationship with. I would imagine this be the case for lots of people working and would find it difficult for all of them to close ranks and back each others stories 100%.

I'm not even going to bother finding the guy's name, but the Guardian correspondent who used to be a Met advisor but stepped down because they police didn't jump as high as he said, he made a point about the police failing to stop Duggan getting the gun in the first place.

Briefly, in the week before Duggan's shooting, the gun that was later found 20ft from Duggan had been used to pistol whip someone in London. That had been reported to the police and from what he wrote there was CCTV to back up the assault.

Now, the Guardian writer was basically saying the cops should have acted on that and that would have prevented Duggan from even getting the gun in the first place, therefore he wouldn't have been shot.

A point I'd like to make is that the Guardian writer and the Duggan family try and make out that Duggan never had a gun at all. Duggan was supposed to be unarmed and the cops planted it to get off after "executing" him. However, that would have meant they'd have needed to get the gun off the criminal without charging him, killed Duggan, planted the gun and then went and charged the guy whose gun they somehow stole.

It's BS. It doesn't make sense. The only way that gun got there is that Duggan got it from him. Sure, the police could have tried to arrest the guy over the pistol whipping and that may have meant the sale to Duggan couldn't go through, but that would have probably resulted in a pathetic assault charge with the gun disappearing anyway.

I think it has only been recently that the family have even admitted that Duggan had a criminal record. They still cling to the fantasy that he wasn't carrying the gun. If they want complete transparency from the police and any legitimacy to their campaign, the first thing they need to do is admit that Duggan was carrying the gun in the taxi. But IMO it's pretty much impossible for them to admit that because most of their support will disappear if Duggan is revealed as the gangster he was.

The point is not that they did, but that they could.
Yes, it is unlikely to have happened.
But can you not see that the police have to be seen to be squeaky clean.

I am amazed how this has turned into a cause celebre for anyone with a axe to grind with the police or the 'establishment'.

If you are going to pick a standard bearer and look for popular support, Mark Duggan is probably the last person you would choose.

I agree with Stand-Offish that there should be stricter procedures in place after a shooting like this. I think the police involved should be treated like any other witnesses or suspects at a crime scene and split up and not allowed to confer until after they've given their statements.

As we've seen there is a discrepancy between the officer's statement and how the gun came to be where it was. There are a few possible explanations for this:

- The officer is lying, there was no gun in Duggan's hand at all, he wasn't carrying one and it was planted at the scene by the police covering up.
- Duggan acted as said in the officer's statement and then the gun was moved by the police for some reason
- Or (as would seem most likely to me anyway) Duggan, on seeing the police, reached for his gun to throw it out of the window so he wouldn't be caught with an illegal firearm, the officer saw him holding the gun and (quite rightly in my view) fired. At the same time Duggan threw it out of the window.

The third one would seem most likely to me. In that it would at least partly tally with the officers statement and explain how the gun ended up where it was found. But it raises the question of how the officer's statement is partly incorrect. Because the way his statement is worded is very certain without ambiguity. As if to me he's been sat in a room afterwards and thought "I've got to make 100% sure I wasn't at fault here". It would be better, in my opinion, if his statement included some ambiguity, as I'm certain in the few seconds this all took place that the officer didn't have time to view the actions so clearly and to think so clearly and quickly, it'd be more an instinctual thing (ie seeing the gun drawn and firing, rather than the step by step account in the officer's statement).

By the way, from everything I've heard I think the officer who fired was justified to, but I do think the way the police investigate these incidents could be a lot better and could help reduce some of the mistrust of police investigating police if there were better procedures. Things like the police being allowed to confer before giving statements isn't right in my view.

What was with the unions turning up to the vigil, what does this incident have to do with the NUT or the RMT?

The teachers worried their cocaine supply is going to dry up if the police are bumping off all their shadier pupils or do the RMT actively want idiots lining the steets to justify having station staff to protect us?

No idea. Presumably those particular members saw the incident as some kind of social injustice. In my opinion the only social injustice in this whole affair was Mark Duggan himself.

I don't think it has really.
There have been a few posts about murdering police, but these have been shown up for what they are.
My stance is all about transparency.
I am a staunch supporter of the police. One of my relatives is a police officer, not that that is in any way relevant.
This event led to riots the like of which we haven't seen in many a day.
People lost their lives.
Yes most if it was wanton crime for its own sake, but the catalyst was the Duggan killing.
We don't want to see that again.
We must learn from this.

Someone else has been logging in and posting using your ID then.

Give over ... stick to football!
I suppose on reflection, if someone can't be a supporter of the police and still question their procedures then you could be right.

I think you are being quite naïve, there are plenty of people who have a commercial interest in exploiting this situation. Stoking up the flames and then conveniently offering their services as fire fighters. There are plenty of people in this subculture with an ambiguous and amoral view of the sort of violent criminal gangs Duggan at the very least was closely associated with. We have a campaign for “justice” for a dead gangster, the supporters don’t seem to have the same energy for a campaign for the victims of gangsters. In the months to come some of the people (aka community leaders and campaigners) currently wailing about police racism and brutality will be touting for business in the inquires, workshops and community activities they will claim necessary to repair the mistrust they are currently promoting. Of course in suggesting that such cynical, self-perpetuating, reinterpreting of racism and grievance is a commercial activity for some people I am being a shameless racist, which by circular logic proves that funding is required to tackle my racism, so you better not pay any attention to what I’m saying or ask any inconvenient questions or you too will be a racist, and even more money will need to diverted into tackling the racist notion that the perpetuation of grievenance isn’t quite as right-on as the label suggests. In fact I suggest anyone who reads this post, doesn’t.

Who are these 'community leaders' we keep hearing about? I have lived in several places over my adult life and have never been aware of anyone being a 'community leader'.

Gobes with big voices that think they're important.

There could be a few community leaders on here then.
I'm joking .....

They are normally people from a minority group (usually black or Asian) and are regularly found with a chip on their shoulders.

You started off this thread saying that you'd barely seen any of the details of the case but you were still leaning heavily into the Duggan camp. That's not a "staunch police supporter" and it's absolute BS to claim it now, when you've gone further and further into supporting Duggan.

On the first page I asked you: "How do you suggest the police deal with people they expect to be armed criminals on their way to commit a crime?"

You never answered. Have you got an answer yet?

With caution.