I grew up in Brixton...well on Stockwell Park Estate to be precise. My grandfather told me that it use to be a working class but respectable place before it was turned into the ghetto it became in the seventies and eighties. I don't know about the past for Brixton but I know about the late seventies and mid to late eighties because I lived it.

As a teenager there were risky places to walk at night as a white lad. Places it was stupid to walk. No doubt it was the same for many a black boy in other areas..but hey..violent people are jerks wherever you find them. You know when I read these white socialists waffling on about racism I sometimes think that they have never really lived through or seen any hardcore violent racism in the actual flesh.

For me, I think individuals deserve to be judged on their character. Always treat how you find. However communities deserve to be judged by statistics. That appears to be controversial nowadays.

We left in 87, sister and Mum being mugged was the last straw for my stepfather. Still, I know that parts of Brixton were subject to gentrification at that time....there were some great properties there that had their prices floored by the reputation of the riots.

I've only seen it fleetingly since then as coming down to London has since just been about Selhurst.

But my heart is in London.....even if that London is no more.....unless you are a rich boy of course.

Edited by Stirlingsays (27 Apr 2018 12.12pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

SO really then the police were
institutionally incompetent
Not racist
The difference in that to racist is like a candle to a volcano.
I just wish McPherson had said some police were racist; not all of the police which his statement infered. I'm sure with his intellect he must have realised the implication of that particular wording.
Or maybe not, real life passes some by I guess!
Then only some of us white boys could be racist
Not all of us !!!!
I do wonder though if the interviews were made public and what exactly happened that night.
Not for excuses in the outcome of SL but if any provocation caused the coming together.

To label an organisation institutional racist is to say that it is the official policy and practice of that organisation to be racist. I think that was an unjustified slur on many good officers. No doubt there were and are bad apples.

My own opinion is that the police did not give the original enquiry sufficient effort because they did not have any easy leads and it was a tick box exercise.* Anyone who has been burgled will complain that the police were not interested unless you hand them DNA, fingerprints and a video of the criminal confessing. I wonder how many white murder victims did not get justice for the same reason as Stephen.

*I might be wrong but I believe the only witness Dwayne was unable to identify the attackers. Not his fault but that doesn't help the police.

There is also the suggestion that as some of the suspects were related to a local crime lord that the original police were paid to botch the investigation. So far there is no proof of this but nothing surprises me.

The Lawrence family were right to complain about the lack of energy from the investigation. However as other have pointed out this became a witch hunt against the Met and more about political point scoring.

One more point