Category Archives: news
Police case collapses as IPCC reveals no drugs swallowed in Rash Charles killing
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has admitted that there was ‘no controlled substance’ in Rashan Charles’s throat.
In a statement last night the IPCC states: ‘The object did not contain a controlled substance.’
This confirms the suspicions of family and campaigners that the police made up the initial story.
Nevertheless, the IPCC still repeats the police claim that there was something in Rashan’s throat but the package has now turned into an ‘object’.
The IPCC state that they have ‘received results of forensic analysis’ of an ‘object’ but, in another alarming and distressing lack of transparency, fail to disclose what it is.
Weyman Bennett, co-convenor of Stand Up To Racism, said: ‘This is totally outrageous and deepens the anger in the community. All the police officers involved must be suspended immediately. The IPCC statement throws up more questions than it answers and the family and community will want urgent clarification.
‘Why has the IPCC failed to reveal the nature of the claimed object in Rashan’s airways? Why are the police officers involved in his death still on duty?
‘We demand that the IPCC holds an immediate press conference and provide full disclosure of what they know. The reality is that far from “helping” Rashan as the police account claimed, the officers’ forceful arrest resulted in his death.
‘Are the IPCC failing to disclose the nature of the object in order to help the police sustain their line that by putting Rashan in a headlock and another kneeling on his back they were somehow trying to clear his airways?
‘As was said by family and campaigners from the beginning, and as everyone can see for themselves in the video, the police were doing no such thing. Their actions killed Rashan.
‘There must be accountability now. Three black men have been killed by police in the space of a month. Are the police trying to start a community uprising?’
The IPCC statement drives a coach and horses through the attempted justifications for his death.
Of course whether Rashan had been swallowing drugs or not his death would never have been justified but now attempts to explain police actions look even flimsier.
In recent weeks three young black men, Edson Da Costa, Darren Cumberbatch and Rashan Charles have died while in contact with the police.
In Birmingham one black man is in a comma after being shot by police while plain clothes officers were filmed kicking a young Asian man.
All this happens almost to the day of the sixth anniversary of the death of Mark Duggan.
Recently published figures show that while BME people are 13 percent of Londons population they were 36 percent of those he faced the use of force by police.
Bennett added: ‘What we are seeing is institutionalised racism working its violent way though police operations with the end result more dead young black men’.
Rashan Charles killing: police now judge, jury and executioner in fake ‘war on drugs’
The mainstream media is going into overdrive to try and justify the police killing of 20-year-old Rashan Charles. The story seems to go like this – he was a drug dealer so what did he expect. We had the same concocted story when the police killed Edson da Costa a few weeks ago. We had the same story when they executed Mark Duggan in August 2011; this year is the sixth anniversary of Mark’s death and it will be marked by a protest in Tottenham on 5th August.
The London Evening Standard is running a story today with a still from CCTV claiming it shows Rashan swallowing a package. But even if this interpretation is accurate, since when did the police in this country get the right to be judge, jury and executioner on our streets?
Rash was much-liked in the community and tonight’s protest will be well attended for that reason. Anger is growing at the police’s callous disregard for the lives of young black men in London. No police officer has as yet been suspended let alone charged. Is the Met police importing the tactics deployed by the militarised police of the US where their ‘war on drugs’ has led to daily killings of black people and a massive increase in the prison population from 300,000 in the 1980s to over two million today, despite there being no significant increase in the crime rate. As in the US, here in the UK drug use is the same across different ethnic groups. In fact it is likely higher among white people. the number of those involved in dealing are similar also. But it is poor black and working class communities that are targeted, not the cocaine users in the City of London or on Wall street.
If Rashan had swallowed something, putting him in a headlock and strangling him is not going to retrieve the alleged package. Neither is the full weight of a policeman kneeling on his back likely to ‘help’, in fact it probably had a direct bearing on his death, as did the strangulation.
One thing though is crystal clear from Saturday’s police killing: when people in the community see the police arresting someone, intervention is a necessity. It might save someone’s life.
If the police think they can act with impunity because of the cover-ups of the IPCC, then they will continue to do precisely that. Given the mounting death toll, we have no choice but to start to police the police. Tonight’s protest is a start.
If there is no justice for Rash and all the other dead then there will be hell to pay. As Martin Luther King – ‘a riot is the voice of the unheard’.
No justice, no peace. Justice for Rash!
Hackney police kill young black man Rashan Charles
Twenty-year-old Rashan (Rashman) Charles was killed by police on Kingsland Road, Hackney, in the early hours of Saturday morning. A video posted on Twitter shows Rashan being taken to the ground and held in a headlock by a uniformed officer, followed shortly after by a plain clothed policeman who ‘assists’ his colleague by kneeling on Rashan’s back.
The police as always have got their cover-up story out early, claiming that Rashan was trying to ‘swallow an object’ and that the uniformed policeman was trying to prevent Rashan ‘from harming himself’.
The killing of Rashan by police follows hot on the heels of the death of Edson da Costa at the hands of police in Newham a month ago. In that case the police also came out with the line that the person they killed was trying to swallow something, although Edson’s family says there is no evidence of this. Likewise, the video of Rashan’s killing shows no package being swallowed and there is no discernible attempt by police to remove the mystery package.
Far from ‘preventing harm’ the police are clearly seen killing Rashan. The police claim that Rashan was ‘taken ill’ during the encounter. Even after Rashan stops moving the police keep him in handcuffs even though he is likely dead at this point. The plain clothes officer continues to kneel on his back even after this point.
Rashan was initially in a car being pursued by police before he ran into the shop.
From Twitter:
This is the video of officers that work for the @metpoliceuk killing a young black man in Hackney and no news have covered it @linkuptv
This is the video of officers that work for the @metpoliceuk killing a young black man in Hackney and no news have covered it @linkuptv pic.twitter.com/btc2lMCa9M
— #JusticeForRash ✊? (@_coinz) July 22, 2017
The police officers involved in the killing must be arrested. At minimum they must be suspended from duty immediately. Instead all we have is the IPCC opening yet another inquiry into racist police killers from which nothing will come – unless we mount a ferocious campaign for justice for Rash, for Edson and all those who have died after coming into contact with police officers.
Justice for Rash!
No justice No peace
Racist police killers off our streets!!
Self-defence is no offence!
One solution, revolution!
Riot police attack peaceful protesters fighting for justice for Edson Da Costa
Protesters besieged Forest Gate police station in east London yesterday in protest at the killing of Edson Da Costa.
The peaceful protest saw people march to Stratford station where they were greeted by a massive ver reaction by the police who bussed in hundreds of riot police when there was no riot taking place. Later, in response to the police heavy-handedness protesters began to fightback.
A number of small fires were lit but the disturbances were confined to a small area of Romford Road with some kid celebrators getting caught up in the unnecessary and provocative police action.
Edson’s family had been pressured by police to call of the planned protest march. The police were more worried about ‘a riot’ than they were about justice for Edson who died after being stopped inc his car by police.
Edson’s neck was broken in two places and he and multiple head injuries. Witnesses say police were kneeling on his throat.
Incredibly the toothless police watchdog – the IPCC – claims that Edson was not injured but daily and hospital staff tell a different story.
Racist Met cop openly admits to racial profiling of black DJ in car stop
The police seem to be intent on starting more riots with their brazen racism.
From the Guardian –
The police watchdog has launched an investigation after an officer pulled over a DJ driving a Bentley in central London and told him that black people driving in “gangster-style clothing” are more likely to be stopped.
DMO Deejay, 27, who plays weekly at the Dstrkt nightclub in Leicester Square, posted a video on YouTube, taken in early January, of him being pulled over by police while driving a Bentley GTC convertible in Piccadilly.
In the footage, the Metropolitan police officer tells the DJ: “This isn’t racist, it’s a fact. Predominantly, the criminal profile of people who do it [commit robberies in the area] are black people.
“So, naturally, if you see a car full of black lads, maybe dressed in gangster-style clothing or whatever, when they’re driving down there, they’re getting stopped.” more