30 November 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Smiley Culture’s death in police raid does not justify charges, IPCC rules

originally by: The Guardian
published: 29th Nov 2011

Police have been criticised by an independent watchdog for a botched raid that led to the death of reggae star Smiley Culture, it was revealed on Tuesday. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) claim that Smiley Culture, otherwise known as David Emmanuel, died after stabbing himself through the heart during a drugs raid at his Surrey home on 15 March 2011.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) conducted an investigation into Emmanuel’s death. The summary of their final report – the coroner has asked that the full report is not made public or shared with Emmanuel’s family – condemns the raid as significantly flawed and compels the MPS to overhaul the way they plan and execute future drug seizures.

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26 August 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Police admit failure to treat Chinese man’s murder as racist

originally by: The Guardian
published: 23rd August 2011

The family of a murdered Chinese man have received a public apology after the police admitted that officers had failed to treat an attack by a gang of youths as a racist murder. Lothian and Borders police said on Tuesday there were a series of “significant” and unacceptable flaws in its investigation into the killing last year of Simon San, a 40-year-old takeaway worker.

San died from severe head injuries after he was attacked by a group of white youths outside the family’s Chinese takeaway at Lochend in Edinburgh. San’s head hit the ground with fatal force after one attacker, John Reid, 16, struck him with a “poleaxe” blow.

After admitting culpable homicide, Reid was jailed for five years while two other attackers, also 16, had their sentences for assault later cut to 26 and 24 months.

31 July 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Anger erupts over police shootings

by: San Francisco Bay Guardian
27th July 2011

As the murky details of two recent police shootings emerge, a palpable anger surging through targeted communities points to a deeper issue than the particular circumstances surrounding each of these deaths. Simply put, many Bay Area communities are fed up with police violence.

For many activists who descended on transit stations to protest the fatal BART police shooting of Oscar Grant III, the 20-year-old unarmed Hayward man who was killed on New Year’s Day 2009, an upwelling of rage was rekindled after BART cops shot and killed a homeless man named Charles Blair Hill on July 3 in Civic Center Station.