By Gabriel Princewill-
The Court Of Appeal judges who ruled on the Mark Duggan appeal made by the family got it wrong.
Mark Duggan was shot dead in August 2011 after armed cops believed him to have a gun.
The family of the dead North Londoner was shot after cops received intelligence that Duggan had a gun and was planning to use it for criminal purposes.
Duggan was in a cab when armed cops pursued the vehicle in which Duggan was in.
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The cab eventually stopped, and when it was stationary Duggan was said by witnesses to have emerged from the car and put his hands up.
The marksman, known only as V53 fired a number of shots and killed the 22 year old who had a string of criminal offences.
V53 claimed to have believed Duggan had a gun, but no gun was found on Duggan’ s person when he fell to he ground.
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A gun was later found a 100 yards from where he was , but none of the officers saw Duggan throw the gun.
No witness claimed to have seen him through he gun. Neither did anyone see the officers throw he gun, so how he gun ended up where it did remains a mystery.
A ruling of lawful killing was given by the courts, but Duggan’s family appealed the ruling.
MISDIRECTED
The grounds of he appeal was premises on the view that the jury was misdirected to consider whether V53 believed Mark Duggan had a gun, rather than whether the belief held was ” reasonable “.
However, the Court of Appeal today ruled that such specific direction was not necessary, because it was ” common sense”.
FLAWED
That judgement appears flawed not because V53 was necessarily unreasonable in believing Duggan might have had a gun, but because he marksman’ s response was not proportionate to he evidence before him.
V53 could have shot Duggan in the legs. He could have also shot him a few times in he arms, but instead, he shot him several times , ostensibly ensuring he died.
You see, Duggan may actually have had a gun; in fact it is questionable why the Londoner did not just remain in the cab with his hands up instead of getting out of he car, potentially alarming officers in the process.
PROBLEM
The problem is that shooting him dead was not the correct response. V53, a trained marksman, could have maimed Duggan, instead of killing him.
DISPOSE
If Duggan had a gun, be wanted to dispose of it, and he successfully did so, amazingly without being spotted doing it. The somewhat incessant gun shots that killed him could indeed have been averted .
IMPOSSIBLE
It is practically impossible to definitively tell whether V53 reasonably believed Duggan had a gun when he stepped out of the vehicle.
Yet, it is avowedly plausible to conclude that V53 should have known that someone in Duggan’s position may fancy his chances of disposing the gun. In failing to reflect such realisation, the killing was unlawful.
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