Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old British man from London, was shot dead by police in Tottenham, on 4 August 2011. The Metropolitan Police stated that officers were attempting to arrest Duggan on suspicion of planning an attack and that he was in possession of a handgun. Duggan died from a gunshot wound to the chest. The circumstances of Duggan's death resulted in public protests in Tottenham, which led to conflict with police and escalated into riots across London and other English cities.
Duggan was under investigation by Operation Trident, an anti-crime project conducted by the Metropolitan Police. He was aware of this and texted the message "Trident have jammed me" moments before the incident.
He was known to be in possession of a BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun, a blank-firing replica of a Beretta 92 pistol, converted to fire live rounds. This had been given to him by Kevin Hutchinson-Foster 15 minutes before he was shot. At an initial trial of Hutchinson-Foster in September–October 2012 the jury failed to reach a verdict. At a re-trial on 31 January 2013 Hutchinson-Foster was convicted of supplying Duggan with the gun and jailed. In August 2013 the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said its investigation had substantially ended and that they had found no evidence of criminality by the police. A public inquest on the Duggan death began on 16 September 2013, and ended on 8 January 2014 with an 8–2 majority concluding that Duggan's death was a lawful killing.
Conflicting accounts of the events leading up to Duggan's death were provided by the Metropolitan Police, attracting criticism and suspicion from invested parties and other supporters. These critics accused police of misconduct and of failing to cooperate with those investigating Duggan's death.
Background
Mark Duggan
Mark Duggan was born on 15 September 1981 and grew up in Broadwater Farm, North London. His parents were of mixed Irish and African-Caribbean descent. Between the ages of 12 and 17, he lived with his maternal aunt Carole in Manchester. His maternal aunt Julie was married to Manchester gangland boss Desmond Noonan.
Duggan had children aged 10 years, 7 years, and 18 months with his long-term partner Semone Wilson, had fathered a fourth child with a second woman, and a fifth child, born posthumously, with a third woman. Duggan had worked at Stansted Airport, and had applied for a job as a firefighter, according to his cousin. Duggan's son, Kemani, is a member of the UK drill collective OFB going by the moniker Bandokay.
Alleged and actual criminal activity
According to Tony Thompson of the Evening Standard, London edition, Duggan may have been a founding member of North London's "Star Gang", an offshoot of the Tottenham Mandem gang. Unnamed police sources alleged via The Daily Telegraph that Duggan was a "well known gangster" and a "major player and well known to the police in Tottenham".
Officers attached to Operation Trident had Duggan under surveillance; police stated that they suspected Duggan was planning to commit a crime in retaliation for the killing of his cousin, Kelvin Easton, who was stabbed to death outside a bar in East London in March 2011. Duggan was described as having been increasingly paranoid as a consequence of his cousin's death. The Daily Telegraph alleged that Duggan was bound to avenge his cousin's death by the "street code" of the gang.
After Duggan's death, he was alleged to be a drug dealer by reports. Duggan's family said that Duggan was "not a gang member and he had no criminal record". The inquest into his death was told that he had been convicted of cannabis possession and handling stolen goods. His fiancée said he had spent time on remand.
Shooting
Officers of the Metropolitan Police Service stopped a minicab which was carrying Duggan as a passenger at about 18:15 BST on 4 August 2011. There was no CCTV coverage of the place where they stopped the cab.
According to an unnamed firearms officer at the trial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster in September 2012, Duggan pivoted out of the cab and pulled a selfloading pistol or handgun from his waistband. According to the taxi driver, who was granted anonymity at the subsequent inquest, Duggan left the car and ran:
The car that had stopped – men got out of it very quickly who were carrying guns in their hands. Then I heard the sound of my rear door opening. I saw that Mark Duggan got out and ran. At the same time, I heard firing from the front. I saw shots strike Mark Duggan. He fell to the ground. 'Mark Duggan only got 2ft–3ft from my car when he was shot'. At the same time a man came and he opened my door. Very angrily he pulled me out by my arm and then he dropped me or knelt me down on the ground by the rear tyres of the car.
The taxi driver told the inquest that an armed officer had threatened to shoot him if he did not stop looking at where Duggan had fallen to the ground and was being handled "quite harsh[ly] and callous[ly]" by officers.
The police fired twice, hitting Duggan in the biceps and chest, killing him. A firearm was found at the scene. Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service and medical staff from London's Air Ambulance attended, but Duggan was pronounced dead at the scene at 18:41 BST.
The police who shot Duggan were part of the Specialist Firearms Command (CO19), accompanying officers from Operation Trident.
According to one eyewitness cited by The Independent, Duggan "was shot while he was pinned to the floor by police". According to another eyewitness cited in The Telegraph, a police officer had "shouted to the man to stop 'a couple of times', but he had not heeded the warning". According to a witness cited by the BBC, a police officer twice shouted: "Put it down" before Duggan was shot. However, the taxi driver who was travelling with Duggan told the inquest the police shouted no warning before shooting. A Metropolitan Police Federation representative asserted that the officer who killed Duggan had "an honest-held belief that he was in imminent danger of him and his colleagues being shot".
One of the officers who had surrounded Duggan was hit by a bullet, which lodged in his radio. It had been fired by the policeman identified only as V53 and had passed through Duggan's arm and then hit the officer. The shot policeman was taken to a hospital and discharged the same evening.
Subsequent police actions
Police proceeded to move the taxi in which Duggan had been travelling. After some dispute over when the vehicle was moved, it was stated that police moved the taxi for examination and then returned it to the scene. A local equality advocate said that the IPCC initially had no knowledge of these events, but later stated that it had sanctioned removal of the vehicle and then requested that it be restored to the scene.
An initial "short-form" report of the incident – filed by an officer identified as "W70" – did not say that Duggan had raised a gun. W70 filed another report 48 hours later which described Duggan drawing a gun from his waistband. Officer W70 later testified that short-form reports are "deliberately brief".
Police did not inform Duggan's family of his death until a day and a half after he was killed. The police later apologised for this delay.
IPCC explanations
Initially, a spokesman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) stated that they "understand the officer was shot first before [Duggan] was shot"; police later called this statement a mistake. A bullet was found embedded in a radio worn by a policeman, and ballistics tests on the projectile indicate it was a "jacketed round", or police issue bullet fired from a Heckler & Koch MP5 semi-automatic carbine used by the police. Its presence may have been due to a ricochet or overpenetration.
On 18 November 2011, the IPCC announced that the 9mm gun associated with the scene of the killing had been found 10–14 feet (3.0–4.3 m) away, on the other side of a fence. QC Michael Mansfield, barrister for the Duggan family, told the IPCC that witnesses had told him they saw police throw the gun over the fence. The IPCC initially reported that three officers had also witnessed an officer throw the gun, but later retracted this report.
The IPCC had commissioned tests on the pistol by the Forensic Science Service and had received advice that it was an illegal firearm. The gun was wrapped in a sock, a practice allegedly used to avoid leaving evidence if it was used. The IPCC announced on 9 August that there was no evidence that the gun had been fired, that this had not been ruled out and further tests were being conducted.
It was also announced on 18 November 2011 that the IPCC would investigate whether the same gun had been used in an incident six days earlier, on 29 July 2011, when barber Peter Osadebay was assaulted in Hackney by 30-year-old Kevin Hutchinson-Foster after Hutchinson-Foster brandished a gun. On 31 January 2013, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was found guilty of supplying the gun to Duggan, during which he admitted using the same weapon to beat Osadebay. Duggan's fingerprints were found on a cardboard box, which appeared to have contained the gun when he collected it. The sock, with the gun inside, was found out of this box as much as 20 feet (6.1 m) away from where Duggan was shot. Neither his DNA nor fingerprints were found on the sock which wrapped the gun, nor on the weapon itself. Additional tests found no gunshot residue on Duggan.
Aftermath
News of Duggan's death was publicised quickly. Soon after Duggan was shot, an image was posted on Facebook showing police standing over a body that may have been his. Outrage about the police killing quickly escalated.
Protest and unrest
Tension with police
There was a long history of tension between black communities and the police before and since the Broadwater Farm riot in 1985, in which, according to David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, the "cracks that already existed between the police and the community became deep fissures". Since 1985 "there had been some progress made in the relationship between the local community and the police", but the shooting "raised tension". Lammy stated that Duggan's death occurred as part of "a history in Tottenham that involves deaths in police custody". Claudia Webbe, the chairperson of Operation Trident, asserted that many black people see Duggan's shooting as "yet another unjust death in custody" and that young black people in Tottenham are "still six, seven, eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts".
Black British novelist Alex Wheatle, who served a term of imprisonment for crimes he committed in the 1981 Brixton riot, asserted that there was "a deep aggravation" that despite many black deaths in police custody there had never been a conviction of a police officer.
Riots
At about 17:30 BST on 6 August 2011, Duggan's relatives and local residents marched from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham Police Station. The demonstrators chanted "we want answers" and requested information from police about the circumstances of Duggan's death. They also made broader demands for "Justice", seeking to publicise ongoing poor relations with police in their community.
A chief inspector spoke with the demonstrators, who demanded to see a higher-ranking officer. About 20:00 BST, a 16-year-old girl approached them and may have thrown a leaflet or a stone. Police swarmed the girl with shields and batons, allegedly causing head injuries. At about 20:20 BST, members of the waiting crowd attacked two nearby police cars, setting them on fire. According to Metropolitan Police Commander Adrian Hanstock, the violence was started by "certain elements, who were not involved with the vigil". Other observers state that the rally began peacefully but was incited by the police attack.
Rioting, arson and looting spread to other parts of London, and to elsewhere in England. Rioters expressed mixed motivations for rioting, including policing issues, poverty, and racial tension with police.
Duggan's family condemned the disorder. His older brother said, "We're not condoning any kind of actions like that at all." While Duggan's shooting was perhaps the trigger for the violence, several other causes of the rioting have been suggested. Then British Prime Minister David Cameron rejected a causal relationship between the death of Duggan and the subsequent looting.
Duggan's death quickly became a major media story. Initially the media including the BBC incorrectly reported that one shot was 'discharged from an illegal firearm inside the car'. The Independent stated on 8 January 2014: "The authorities wrongly said that he had been hit in an exchange of fire".
Some of the media were criticized for portraying Duggan as a gangster, confused by his criminal record being reported as either extensive or non-existent by different outlets. The media was faulted for uncritically reporting the police's story that Duggan had shot first – also shown to be false.
The riots brought international attention to Duggan's death, which one Iranian official described as a "human rights violation".
Funeral
Duggan's funeral took place at New Testament Church of God in Wood Green on 9 September 2011. The funeral procession was watched by thousands of onlookers. Police maintained a low profile.
Investigations
IPCC
The incident was immediately referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), in accordance with standard practice when anyone dies or is seriously injured following police contact. Investigators distributed leaflets appealing for witnesses to come forward. IPCC officers also searched CCTV footage, 999 calls and radio transmissions.