Excellent post from Transpontine:
http://transpont.blogspot.com/2012/02/po...-hill.html

Police shooting in Forest Hill
On Sunday morning (19 February), a 25 year old man of Ghanaian origin was shot and critically injured by police in Stanstead Road, SE23.

With the last police shooting in London - the killing of Michael Duggan in Tottenham - sparking widespread rioting, the police have gone into public relations overdrive. The police held a public meeting about the incident on Monday night (see report at The Multicultural Politic) and Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group is holding another one on Saturday (25.02.12) at Kilmorie Primary School, Kilmorie Road, London, SE23 2SP, starting at 1pm. Naturally the police will want to put across their version of events, but it is important to be clear that the facts of what happened have not yet been independently established. In many previous cases the first version of events reported in the press has turned out to be incomplete and misleading.

Previous Cases


Let's recall the case of Jean Charles de Menezes, the young Brazilian man shot dead by police at Stockwell Station in July 2005. In the aftermath of this, police officers made a number of statements on or off the record which were subsequently found to be untrue. They also allowed press stories which they knew to be untrue to go unchallenged. Many people would have gained the false impression from this that Jean Charles was acting suspiciously: that he was wearing bulky clothing on a summer's day (in fact he was wearing a denim jacket), that he jumped the ticket barrier (the CCTV showed he used an oyster card) and that he ignored police warnings (the jury at the inquest concluded that no warning was given).

Likewise in the Mark Duggan case, it was suggested that he had fired at police. It was later disclosed that this was incorrect and that a bullet that lodged in a policeman's radio had in fact been fired by another officer.

What happened in Forest Hill?

Many people have already made up their mind about what happened in Forest Hill on Sunday. To quote a commenter at Brockley Central. 'The man was running round with a machete. Tasers didn't work. What's to discuss?'. This may or may not be correct. This is what the police statement said:

'At around 05:40 hrs on Sunday 19 February, police were called to reports by members of the public of a man attempting to break in to a car in Elsinore Road, SE23. Local officers attended and attempted to approach the man who then threatened them with a large bladed weapon. The officers retreated and called for further units to assist including firearms officers.The man then approached officers on Stanstead Road threatening them with the weapon.

Firearms officers attended the scene, and both taser and firearms were deployed. Subsequently the male received gunshot wounds having been shot by police...The circumstances will now be subject of an investigation. There are no further details at present but we can confirm a number of knives have been recovered from the scene'.