Who Is Responsible For The Killing Of Mark Duggan Essay

A country with no justice is a country with no peace. The killing of Mark Duggan happened about seven years ago on the 4th of august 2011. Mark Duggan was shot dead in Tottenham, North London, after specialist firearms officers had stopped the cab he was in, on grounds of being in possesion of a firearm, he was later killed by a specialist police marksman also known as V53. A lot of investigations on the killing of Mark Duggan have been carried out as to account for his killing. The police officer, V53 has been blamed by many people for his fatal shootings but there has never been anyone to look into the matter of this police brutality as the government has shown a lot of reluctance within this matter (Davis, 2017). From previous research there

has been major controversy on whether Mark Duggan was essentially in possession of a handgun when he was being shot. The truth about Mark Duggan holding a gun has not yet been pointed out. From the report given by IPCC (Independent Police Complaints’ Commission) says that there was no firearm found on him, however a handgun contained in a sock was found meteres away from his body (Davis, 2017). Nevertheless, the officer who killed Mark Duggan claimed that he shouted “armed police” and saw Duggan holding an object within his right hand, which the officer believed to be a gun. Specialist officer V53 had thought that Duggan was honestly a “forthcoming threat to life” and shooting him was the only option. Previous reports have not yet given clear information on whether Mark Duggan was in possession of a gun or not. In the case of finding the whereabouts of Mark’s killing, it depends on whom you ask because each side gives different answers. The family of Mark Duggan together with other people in the society argues that there was no justice in the killing of Mark while on the other side of the state argues that Mark Duggan’s killing was lawful and that Mark was a criminal who deserved no life. In such a case, the only response, which matters, is for the government, however this case questions the practices of injustice within. This brings rise to the research question, was it lawful to have Mark Duggan killed by a police officer? This essay will give a discussion to answer this research question. The essay also identifies a research gap of determining whether the officer, V53 who killed Mark Duggan did an acceptable thing or the right thing. Previous researchers have not yet addressed this research as they focused so much on the injustice within the society and thus this paper will also address this. In as much as killing is one of the lawful acts of the government, to some extent it requires proper justice because injustice leads to lack of peace and also means that where there are black individuals, there is no life which should not be the case (Davis, 2017). Police officers need to explore other ways of dealing with criminals other than only shooting them to death especially targeting individuals from African backgrounds. In the event where the police officer, V53 found that Mark was holding a gun ready to shoot him as the state tried to put out, then it can be said that the officer did the right thing. This has not yet been proved because the killing of Mark raised much demonstrations among young black minorities and other movements advocating for justice were also seen to emerge meaning that there was racial oppression in London which led to the killing of the black man, Mark Duggan (Bassel, 2017).
Research methodological techniques-
This involves the procedures and techniques used to analyze the information collected from Mark’s family, other individuals and various organizations about the killing of Mark Duggan. These techniques includes interviewing the persons involved e.g. the family of Mark Duggan to help determine whether Mark Duggan was a criminal and also to determine what he was capable of doing. Other individuals who were among the friends of Mark Duggan have also been interviewed. The second research techinique used is that of research survey where various groups and organizations have been used to take part in surveys, which in fact provides detailed information on the killing of Mark Duggan. The last technique was the use of secondary data where information already available on the Mark Duggan’s killing was retrieved to assist us in finding out whether his killing was unlawful or not. All these methodological approaches used were based on qualitative methods because the main goal was to obtain relevant information to aid in the research. These methods were used because they were simple and had some accuracy during the analysis of the information.
Research findings-
The state of London narrated that Mark Duggan was a criminal and thus there were laws of dealing with criminals and one of the laws is murder.

Many people in London are not willing to accept murder as a form of justice as previous research reports and most especially the family of Mark Duggan. Duggan’s family together with many other people opposes the lawful killing arguing that the killing was not properly justified. On the other hand, the state of London carried out investigations and found out that the killing was vindicated and thus it was a lawful killing according to the metropolitan police. The report given by the government to mark the accountability of the killing of Mark Duggan lawfuly took a period of three and half years to be written and had been announced to the public and the family of Mark Duggan. The mother of Mark Duggan, Pamela Duggan said that the state’s report was just like a slap in the face because it took much time to come up with the report and thus Pamela as the mother of Mark did not trust the report. To some extent, Pamela Duggan was right because it is impossible for a state of a nation to carry out investigations for the killing of one person for a period of more than three years meaning that the investigations had been interfered with by government officials in the fear of being blamed of having murdered someone. At each and every stage of the investigation, the state has been seen to avoid the blame of having murdered Mark Duggan and

throughout the investigation process the state of London has repeated the trauma of the killing of Mark Duggan again and again this is as such due to ultimately being able to absolve the blame and account Mark Duggan’s killing as a lawful killing which Mark’s family does not accept up to today but there is nothing the family can do since the state has already declared it a lawful killing.
After looking at the United State of America and it’s outbreaks it was clear that black individuals were more vulnerable to being targeted and ‘killed’ by the police and they are therefore denied “life” before they die and also subsequently after they die, as presence of black people did not guarantee their life (Erfani-Ghettani, 2018). Once black minorities were born, racial oppression began. Every person can be regarded as a potential criminal and hence no one is perfect and thus the need for justice. When a black individual is killed, both the media and the police quickly work together to write bad reports regarding the individual, as to show how black people do not deserve life because the media likes to portray black individuals in a ruthless way, black people are denied life from the beginning (Erfani-Ghettani, 2018). For instance, a black man called Michael Brown was born, rose up by his parents as a good son and was taken to school until he became a graduate but eventually ended up to be a criminal. In a similar way, mark Duggan was a son to Pamela Duggan who took him to school and Mark Duggan ended up becoming a criminal, was thereafter shot dead.
Stanley Cohen was a sociologist and a criminologist who lived in London and came up with the theory of denial and hence Stanley Cohen’s theory of Denial.

In his theory, Stanley Cohen analyzed both political and social ways where human beings try to avoid the realities of life that make them uncomfortable like suffering, injustices and poverty (Cohen, 2017). He also adds that there are forms of denial which are elementary and they may know about existence of something or may not know about something’s existence. This means that it is possible to have people who do not know or people who know about some matters of denial (Cohen, 2017). Stanley Cohen’s theory of denial states that some people could be knowing facts about something but still deny that it exists. For instance, many people know that racial oppression occurs yet they deny it. Other people like the state officials of the government can witness real acts of racial oppression among other evil actions like those of slavery or any other kind of suffering yet they deny the happening of such actions (Cohen, 2017). In this case, Mark Duggan’s killing can also be associated to Stanley Cohen’s theory of denial whereby the officials of the state of London could have known the truth behind the killing of Mark Duggan but they denied it to the public to avoid the public blame on the state (Cohen, 2017). The theory of denial can also be associated with the fact that black people were denied life by the society and killing Mark

Duggan was one way of showing how the life of a black man was meaningless (Cayli et al., 2018). The act of racial oppression is a very uncomfortable topic, which makes it hard for a nation’s state to acknowledge that such an act like killing really can happen. In the theory of denial, Stanley Cohen wanted to point out and bring out the awareness to the public so that the public can get to understand the structure of their society and how much the people can choose to have the society of today ignored especially when someone happens to know about the occurrence of something but eventually denies its happening (Cohen, 2017). According to the family of Mark Duggan, the government was aware that it was unfair to kill Mark Duggan with no proper justice and also the state knew that murder is not fair but the state still wanted to deny the happening of this unfair justice claiming that it was a lawful killing simply because the government does not want to bear the blame of murder from the public society and hence a state of denial was witnessed.
The importance of Stanley Cohen’s theory of denial is very informing as it creates awareness of how people of the society can become. The killing of Mark Duggan was also based on racist beliefs according to the report drawn from research because Mark was a man of color. The Accountability of the killing of Mark Duggan following the fact that he was a man of color and hence the state did not want to accept that racial oppression was still in existence thus, regarding the killing of Mark to be a lawful one (Cayli et al., 2018). However, Mark Duggan was a gangster and to some extent he was guilty and it is all because of racial oppression by the white officials of the state. Oppression can at times make someone to appear guilty or to become a criminal in the event of fighting for the lives of black people.
After the killing of Mark Duggan, those people including the family of Mark Duggan who were against the killing of their beloved Mark and the accountability of London declaring that the killing was lawful, formed a movement known as BlackLives Matter (Cayli et al., 2018). The call for accountability of the state has not yet solved the issue of death for black people just like the way London’s accountability on the killing of Mark Duggan did not help to solve issues of black people and the whole issue ended up favoring the state government (Cayli et al., 2018). With the movement of BlackLivesMatter, a ground of battle emerged about those people who had been killed and the state on the other side (Cayli et al., 2018). This battle was to demand for the value of life for blacks. White people protested against this movement which the state was seen to protest.