A-Infos (en) Defying the police bigotry: 'Injustice' on your screen

["kebele KP" <kebele@marsbard.com>]

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The anarchist collective Kebele and the local anarchist magazine 
Bristle together with the community paper Planet Easton are 
organizing the screening of the film "Injustice" about deaths in 
custody in the UK (Sat 29th Sept, -2pm @Easton Community 
Centre). 

The film has already been banned  three times and last week the 
police tried to stop it in Brixton again. However Migrant media (the 
makers of the film) managed to show it twice in this London area 
where the most deaths in custody have occurred and this -as and 
how one of its co-directors has stated- is itself a victory. 

The police Federation has tried to ban the film becouse they allege 
that officers who have taken part in the killing of people in custody 
are exposed. Their methods are based on pure intimidation, 
threatening venues and organizations to withdraw licenses and 
funding to the g. This intimidation has taken its toll, putting off 
many venues from showing the film. 

After being showed in the human Rights Conference in London, the 
film was cancelled in two cinemas and in the third one the 
attendants -mainly relatives who had had enough of having the 
pess taken out of them…- barricaded themselves inside when the 
venue owners warned about the police being on their way. In 
Manchester it was cancelled in a cinema too but a squatted café 
was the alternative venue. This practice, though completely illegal 
as the video hasn't been censored, demonstrates the power and 
abuse of the police forces. 

The police solicitors alleged that the video provided names of 
officers. However, what the video does is to expose the officers who 
have been tried for deaths occurred in custody and who have been 
cleared out of crimes. More than 1,000 deaths have taken place in 
prisons and police stations in the UK in the last 30 years and no 
officer has done time for it. There is no need to say that more of the 
victims belong to ethnic minorities and the refugee community. The 
immunity that the police enjoy is clear. And this video 
demonstrates to be a threat against it. 

This first show of Injustice in Bristol will have one of the directors 
Ken Fero and three relatives from the victims on the video. This 
video took 7 years to be complete and  it's focused on the deaths 
of four people (Brian Douglas, Shiji Lapite, Wayne Douglas and 
Ibrahima Sey) and the efforts of their relatives for gaining justice. 
Relatives of people dead in custody formed the United Friends and 
Families Campaign. Brenda Weinberg, the sister of Douglas and 
chair of the UFFC, said: "The police are clearly frightened of the 
families and the campaign, so they are threatening to sue the 
cinemas." 

The new Home Secretary, David Blunkett has expressed concern 
about the number of deaths in custody, and the United Friends and 
Families Campaign is preparing to raise money for private 
prosecutions. 

"This is more than just a documentary, this is a political 
campaign," Fero said. "This has taken seven years of my life, and I 
am not about to give up now". Ken Fero says he is not interested 
in making objective films. He knew whose side he was on from the 
start: "when we started investigating the cases, the facts were so 
clear that it was never a question of right and wrong, it was simply 
wrong, and a wrong that has been hidden". Migrant media are 
committed to show the film even though they have to take it round 
the country themselves as they are doing. There are apart from the 
Bristol screening more screenings planned in London, Manchester 
and Birmingham and even South Africa (Durban International Film 
Festival). A screening is also planned for the London Anarchist 
Bookfair on Saturday 20th October, 11am (Friends Meeting House, 
Euston Road, WC1) which will also have the participation of film 
makers and families.

This video is relevant to Bristol as deaths in custody have occurred 
here. In 1995 Mark Harris, a Black man from Cardiff, died in 
custody. In the trial witnesses who were in the police statin at the 
time testified they heard screams from someone (Black) being 
beaten up. The police presented his death as suicide. No officer 
was punished.

Gary Mills and Tony Poole were sentenced in Bristol to live 
imprisonment for the death of Hensley Wiltshire. What wasn't 
taken in consideration is that after the row involving the three men, 
Hensley (a Black man too) was taken to the police station. Hews 
taken from teher dead and the 2 Gloucester men were imprisoned.

Locals in Easton organized when the police harassment -based 
again on race- was getting out of proportion. Attendants to this 
meeting showed that the known cases weren't the only ones but 
that the police attitude in this area was widespread. 

The victims on the video 

Shiji Lapite, a Nigerian asylum-seeker and father of two, was 
stopped by police in Hackney in December 1994 for "acting 
suspiciously". Officers said that they found crack cocaine at the 
scene. In a struggle one officer held Lapite in a headlock while a 
fellow officer kicked him in the head. The coroner found more than 
40 areas of injury on Lapite's body, including crushed bones at the 
front of his neck and severe bruising across his back. As he was 
being loaded into a police van, witnesses saw his head "lolling 
about". According to Lapite's lawyer, Raju Bhatt, the officers at the 
inquest described the Nigerian as "the biggest, strongest, most 
violent black man they had ever seen". He was no longer a father of 
two or an asylum seeker. In the public eye he became a drug 
dealer after an undercover officer claimed he found crack cocaine at 
the incident. Despite this, the only injuries suffered by the police 
officers were a scratch on the tip of one man's finger and a bite 
mark on the shoulder of the officer using the head lock. PC 
McCullum admitted kicking him twice in the head as hard as he 
could, and said he was using reasonable force to subdue a violent 
prisoner. The jury in the inquest took 20 minutes to come to a 
unanimous verdict of unlawful killing. However, the Crown 
Prosecution Service decided not to proceed against the two officers 
involved, Paul Wright and Andrew McCallum.

Five months after the death of Shiji Lapite, Brian Douglas was 
stopped by police in Clapham, south London, after a night out with 
a friend. Two officers, Mark Tuffy and Paul Harrison, admit using 
batons to restrain Douglas before bundling him into a police van 
and taking him to Kennington police station. Despite serious head 
injuries, he was at the station for 15 hours before being taken to 
hospital. It later emerged he had a fractured skull and damage to 
his brain stem. He died almost a week later. At the inquest Tuffy 
said his baton had accidentally slipped when he hit Douglas on the 
shoulder. Evidence at the inquest said the force of the blow was 
equivalent to being dropped from 11 times his own height on to his 
head. The jury returned a verdict of misadventure, later challenged 
unsuccessfully by the family at the High Court. 

In December 1995 Wayne Douglas was arrested for suspected 
burglary. He collapsed and died while detained at Brixton police 
station. Joy Gardner, who died after police stuck 13 feet of tape 
round her face while trying to restrain her, was always shown in a 
photograph as wild and uncontrollable. Fero shows pictures of her 
in her true light - a gorgeous, vibrant woman. In the film, even her 
irrepressible mother can't hold in her grief. She breaks down at a 
public meeting. "I didn't believe human beings could be so cruel to 
each other. You don't know how much I cry. My tears will catch 
them," she says, talking of the officers who killed her daughter.

Ibrahima Sey, a Muslim from the Gambia, who had just celebrated 
the birth of his daughter. In March 1996 police were called to a 
domestic dispute at Sey's home in Forest Gate, east London. 
Police later reported that there had been "a bit of a scuffle" during 
which CS gas had been used. Relatives were told the next day that 
Ibrahima had "passed away" in the custody suite at Ilford police 
station. When they were shown his body they saw he was badly 
bruised on his forehead and stomach - the cause of death was 
officially recorded as "restraint asphyxia". The inquest jury was so 
appalled it insisted on adding manslaughter to the verdict of 
unlawful killing. The custody officer in the case, Stephen Highton, 
believes the film clearly accuses him and his colleagues of murder, 
a charge they deny. 

There are no interviews with police in the film, although a 
spokesman for Migrant Media said individual officers had been 
approached in each case for comment. This is particularly 
problematic in the case of Brian Douglas, where the inquest jury 
decided that there had been no wrongdoing. But lawyers acting for 
Migrant Media have advised them that the public interest in 
showing the film outweighs the concerns of the officers, whose 
version of events is clearly stated. 

The publicity surrounding the film has also raised hopes of a full 
public inquiry into deaths in police custody. Amnesty International 
and the civil rights group Liberty have raised the issue with the 
United Nations, which is due to report on Britain's record on human 
rights and racism later this year. 

" Injustice ":  www.injusticefilm.co.uk 

------------------------------------------------------------------
Kebele Kulture Projekt
14 Robertson Rd, Easton, Bristol, BS5 6JY
0117 9399469
www.marsbard.com/kebele
www.bristle.co.uk


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