9 September 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Handcuffed black youth shot himself to death, says Coroner

source: NBC News.com
published: 25 August 2014

A coroner’s report obtained exclusively by NBC News directly contradicts the police version of how a 22-year-old black man died in the back seat of a Louisiana police cruiser earlier this year, but still says the man, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, shot himself.

In a press release issued March 3, the day he died, the Louisiana State Police said Victor White III apparently shot himself in an Iberia Parish police car. According to the police statement, White had his hands cuffed behind his back when he shot himself in the back.

31 August 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘Police were spying rather than looking for killers’

source: The Guardian
published: 27 August 2014

Sukhdev Reel puts her hand to her chest and pulls her blouse tight around her. “I don’t want to use the word naked, but I just sort of feel …” Across the desk, her daughter Tish watches her carefully. “Stripped of your dignity a bit?” she suggests. Sukhdev nods. “Who was watching me? All I can see is eyes. I can’t get rid of them,” she says, her voice rising to a high, shaky hiccup.

It’s been that way since last month, when the Reel family were summoned to a meeting with Derbyshire police officers working on Operation Herne, the internal inquiry set up to investigate allegations surrounding the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), the now disbanded Scotland Yard undercover unit.

22 June 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Water cannon: policing by consent?

source: The Justice Gap
published: June 2014

On 10 June, the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) announced that it had given the Metropolitan Police Service permission to purchase three second-hand water cannons, pre-empting the Home Secretary’s authority for the weapons to be used on the British mainland.

Since that announcement, debate has raged about the safety of the weapons and their capacity to kill or to maim, culminating in Boris Johnson’s offer to be ‘blasted’ by water cannon to ‘prove’ their safety.

This is the wrong debate.