24 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

US company stops making key death penalty drug

originally by: ABC News
21st January 2011

The sole U.S. manufacturer of a key lethal injection drug said Friday it is ending production because of death-penalty opposition overseas — a move that could delay executions across the United States. Over the past several months, a growing shortage of the drug, sodium thiopental, has forced some states to put executions on hold. And the problem is likely to get worse with the announcement from Hospira Inc. of Lake Forest.

Hospira said it decided in recent months to switch manufacturing from its North Carolina plant to a more modern Hospira factory in Liscate, Italy. But Italian authorities demanded a guarantee the drug would not be used to put inmates to death — an assurance the company said it was not willing to give;

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16 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

New Cross Fire: 30th year anniversary

On This Day – New Cross
BBC Archive

18th January 2011 will mark 30 years since the controversial fire that claimed many lives and left many questioning the quality of the police investigation into the deaths. There are those that say it was an accident and others, a deliberate racist attack the authorities couldn’t be bothered to investigate! The New Cross Fire was a devastating house fire which killed 13 young black people during a birthday party in New Cross, southeast London on Sunday January 18, 1981.

The black community were shocked by the indifference of the white population, and accused the London Metropolitan Police of covering up the cause, which they suspected was an arson attack motivated by racism; the protests arising out of the fire led to a mobilisation of black political activity.

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11 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Inquest into death of High Wycombe man Marcus Cottoy

originally by: Bucks Free Press
6th January 2011

A 31-year-old man who feared ‘people were after him’ died after consuming drugs, an inquest heard this week. Marcus Cottoy, of Hawthorne Road, Micklefield, died on March 22, 2009, hours after being arrested and sectioned in a mental health unit. The inquest into his death began in Winslow yesterday and is scheduled to last eight days. Mr Cottoy had become “paranoid” that people were following him on the previous night, the inquest heard.

At about midnight he pleaded with bar staff at the King George V pub on London Road to call the police, saying he had smashed a window with a pool ball and wanted to be arrested, the inquest heard.