[karajorma]

For those who aren't British and probably don't know the story, in 1993 a black teenager called Stephen Lawrence was killed in a racist murder in Eltham in London (on the same road I used to live on, actually). The police royally ****ed up the investigation and it eventually led to a massive investigation of the police which concluded that they were institutionally racist.

Today, we get this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/23/stephen-lawrence-undercover-police-smears

A police officer who spent four years living undercover in protest groups has revealed how he participated in an operation to spy on and attempt to "smear" the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, the friend who witnessed his fatal stabbing and campaigners angry at the failure to bring his killers to justice.

Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer turned whistleblower, said his superiors wanted him to find "dirt" that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, in the period shortly after Lawrence's racist murder in April 1993.

He also said senior officers deliberately chose to withhold his role spying on the Lawrence campaign from Sir William Macpherson, who headed a public inquiry to examine the police investigation into the death.

Francis said he had come under "huge and constant pressure" from superiors to "hunt for disinformation" that might be used to undermine those arguing for a better investigation into the murder. He posed as an anti-racist activist in the mid-1990s in his search for intelligence.

"I had to get any information on what was happening in the Stephen Lawrence campaign," Francis said. "They wanted the campaign to stop. It was felt it was going to turn into an elephant.

"Throughout my deployment there was almost constant pressure on me personally to find out anything I could that would discredit these campaigns."

Francis also describes being involved in an ultimately failed effort to discredit Duwayne Brooks, a close friend of Lawrence who was with him on the night he was killed and the main witness to his murder. The former spy found evidence that led to Brooks being arrested and charged in October 1993, before the case was thrown out by a judge.

The disclosures, revealed in a book about undercover policing published this week, and in a joint investigation by the Guardian and Channel 4's Dispatches being broadcast on Monday, will reignite the controversy over covert policing of activist groups.

Lawrence's mother, Doreen, said the revelations were the most surprising thing she had learned about the long-running police investigation into her son's murder: "Out of all the things I've found out over the years, this certainly has topped it."

She added: "Nothing can justify the whole thing about trying to discredit the family and people around us."

In a statement, the Metropolitan police said it recognised the seriousness of the allegations – and acknowledged their impact. A spokesman said the claims would "bring particular upset" to the Lawrence family and added: "We share their concerns."

Jack Straw, the former home secretary who in 1997 ordered the inquiry that led to the 1999 Macpherson report, said: "I'm profoundly shocked by this and by what amounts to a misuse of police time and money and entirely the wrong priorities." Straw is considering personally referring the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Francis was a member of a controversial covert unit known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). A two-year investigation by the Guardian has already revealed how undercover operatives routinely adopted the identities of dead children and formed long-term sexual relationships with people they were spying on.

The past practices of undercover police officers are the subject of what the Met described as "a thorough review and investigation" called Operation Herne, which is being overseen by Derbyshire's chief constable, Mick Creedon.

A spokesman said: "Operation Herne is a live investigation, four strands of which are being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and it would be inappropriate to pre-judge its findings."

Francis has decided to reveal his true identity so he can openly call for a public inquiry into undercover policing of protest. "There are many things that I've seen that have been morally wrong, morally reprehensible," he said. "Should we, as police officers, have the power to basically undermine political campaigns? I think that the clear answer to that is no."

Francis has been co-operating with the Guardian as a confidential source since 2011, using his undercover alias Pete Black. He assumed the undercover persona between 1993 and 1997, infiltrating a group named Youth Against Racism in Europe. He said he was one of four undercover officers who were also required to feed back intelligence about the campaigns for justice over the death of Lawrence.

Francis said senior officers were afraid that anger at the failure to investigate the teenager's racist killing would spiral into disorder on the streets, and had "visions of Rodney King", whose beating at the hands of police led to the 1992 LA riots.

Francis monitored a number of "black justice" campaigns, involving relatives of mostly black men who had died in suspicious circumstances in police custody.

However, he said that his supervising officers were most interested in whatever information he could gather about the large number of groups campaigning over the death of Lawrence.

Although Francis never met the Lawrence family, who distanced themselves from political groups, he said he passed back "hearsay" about them to his superiors. He said they wanted information that could be used to undermine the campaign.

One operation Francis participated in involved coming up with evidence purporting to show Brooks involved in violent disorder. Francis said he and another undercover police officer trawled through hours of footage from a May 1993 demonstration, searching for evidence that would incriminate Brooks.

Police succeeded in having Brooks arrested and charged with criminal damage, but the case was thrown out by a judge as an abuse of the legal process. Francis said the prosecution of Brooks was part of a wider drive to damage the growing movement around Lawrence's death: "We were trying to stop the campaign in its tracks."

Doreen Lawrence said that in 1993 she was always baffled about why family liaison officers were recording the identities of everyone entering and leaving their household. She said the family had always suspected police had been gathering evidence about her visitors to discredit the family.

"We've talked about that several times but we never had any concrete [evidence]," she said.

There is no suggestion that the family liaison officers knew the purpose of the information they collected.

Francis claims that the purpose of monitoring people visiting the Lawrence family home was in order "to be able to formulate intelligence on who was going into the house with regards to which part of the political spectrum, if any, they were actually in". The former policeman added: "It would determine maybe which way the campaign's likely to go."

In 1997, Francis argued that his undercover operation should be disclosed to Macpherson, who was overseeing the public inquiry into the Met's handling of the murder. "I was convinced the SDS should come clean," he said.

However his superiors decided not to pass the information on to the inquiry, he said. He said he was told there would be "battling on the streets" if the public ever found out about his undercover operation.

Straw said that neither he nor Macpherson were informed about the undercover operations. "I should have been told of anything that was current, post the election of Tony Blair's government in early May 1997," he said.

"But much more importantly, [the] Macpherson inquiry should have been told, and also should have been given access to the results of this long-running and rather expensive undercover operation."

Quite frankly, I'm disgusted. Didn't they have better things to be doing than trying to find dirt on the family of a murder victim so that they didn't get criticised over the complete and utter **** up they'd made of catching the killers?

Are we really at the point where the police want to shut up anyone who wants justice for a crime?

[deathfun]

We're at the point where Constables are rarely held accountable for the things they do
For me, that's worse since it makes them above the law

[Phantom Hoover]

We're not 'at' any point -- this is the point we were at, a decade or so ago. Whether things have got better or worse since then is a different matter, although I can guess which answer you'll default to.

[SypheDMar]

I can't speak for the British and most Americans, but I really respect the police forces in Columbus. I actually work for the OSU Police Department, and I like to think that we do a good job not being terrible people.

What happened here is truly shameful. It discredits the institution and hurts good people. I'm just glad there was a whistleblower in this case. The problem now is finding a solution to prevent this sort of mess from ever happening again... everywhere.

Yesterday night, I my neighbors who were outside their house drinking and hosting a party were talking about this event loud enough for me to hear the conversation to each other while staring at me in my work uniform when I was waiting for my partner to pick me up from break. People who were leaving the house party were glaring at me, too. I could guess why. I felt really uncomfortable.

[karajorma]

We're not 'at' any point -- this is the point we were at, a decade or so ago.

Debatable. Remember that even if you claim that this is something that happened a long time ago, it didn't come out until today. So quite a few people are in favour of hiding that it happened, even if they don't do it now.

Which is just a different type of abuse.

[FireSpawn]

As horrible as this entire story is, perhaps some good has come of it. We (Brits) have known about the institutionalised racism in our police force for an age, but many disregarded it as either exaggerations, isolated incidents or just plain old smack talk about the police. With this coming to light, no one in their right mind can ignore the facts and say that it is just a one off. An entire police unit partook in this, that's quite a significant amount of manpower and resources.

The next step is to stamp **** like this out, or at least deal with it in such a way that bigoted views of members of the force have minimum impact on the safety and security of the public regardless of religion, gender or ethnicity.

[NGTM-1R]

So quite a few people are in favour of hiding that it happened, even if they don't do it now.

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. If the problem has been corrected, and given that both sides of the relationship are hurt by a lack of trust, is this a great sin? For that matter, you're talking about something a decade ago. You can't say "quite a few people"; there's turnover. People move on and move out and move up. The knowledge base regarding this narrowed, not grew. The conspiracy you're positing got smaller, not larger.

[Phantom Hoover]

The next step is to stamp **** like this out, or at least deal with it in such a way that bigoted views of members of the force have minimum impact on the safety and security of the public regardless of religion, gender or ethnicity.

No, that is not a very good way of dealing with institutional racism. The "racists are horrible people and racism can be fixed by ostracising and humiliating them" attitude mostly just puts people on the defensive: I'm not a horrible person, so I'm not a racist, so any accusations that my actions contribute to or reinforce racial prejudice are at best mistaken and at worst actively malicious.

[FireSpawn]

Oh that's not what I meant. I meant that they should attempt to restructure the organisation in such a way that something like this could not happen again. Better methods for officers to report questionable orders annonymously, greater in-house transparency in regards to unit directives and goals, etc.  Systems that can help mitigate the negative effects of a prejudice officer's possible poor judgement while on the job, lessening the impact on the public.

[karajorma]

Indeed.

My issue isn't that this happened 20 years ago. My issue is that we still don't know if it could be happening today and we'll only hear about it 20 years from now.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Now imagine if they had something like PRISM to help them pull in the info they wanted to find...

[MP-Ryan]

We're at the point where Constables are rarely held accountable for the things they do
For me, that's worse since it makes them above the law

* MP-Ryan throws bull**** flag on the field

Law enforcement are more accountable today than they ever have been.  And before you argue without sourcing, please be aware that I am a sworn peace officer, have been for 8 years, and am intimately familiar with this social issue.

[deathfun]

We're at the point where Constables are rarely held accountable for the things they do
For me, that's worse since it makes them above the law

* MP-Ryan throws bull**** flag on the field

Law enforcement are more accountable today than they ever have been.  And before you argue without sourcing, please be aware that I am a sworn peace officer, have been for 8 years, and am intimately familiar with this social issue.

Then I presume you're aware of the slew of failures of the RCMP in Vancouver yes? Can't immediately source right now, but will search for the articles when I've some more time

[MP-Ryan]

The 'slew of failures' are in fact evidence of increasing accountability.  The RCMP has a serious institutionalized problem with its general attitude, a problem which has been thoroughly publicized and is being examined under an ever-widening investigation (part of which is being conducted by the Senate).

In the past, the variety of indiscretions the RCMP has demonstrated in recently would likely never have made it to light.  Now, with national news button press away, a cell phone camera in every pocket, and YouTube instantly available, every law enforcement officer in the country knows that their actions could land on a political desk before they're done writing their notes.

Not incidentally, the vast majority of law enforcement who are honest, trustworthy, dependable people with integrity embrace the disciplinary actions against the incompetent and the disgraceful.  They - we - embrace more accountability and public interest, and technologies such as body-worn cameras that provide better evidence and transparency.

So yeah - law enforcement and specifically police today are more accountable than ever, and those who go beyond the law are regularly hung out to dry, while those who act within the scope of their duties - which the public does not by and large understand, thanks to TV - are vigorously defended.  I can talk about specific examples, if you like.

[deathfun]

That's alright
I'm good

[SypheDMar]

The 'slew of failures' are in fact evidence of increasing accountability...
... So yeah - law enforcement and specifically police today are more accountable than ever, and those who go beyond the law are regularly hung out to dry, while those who act within the scope of their duties - which the public does not by and large understand, thanks to TV - are vigorously defended.

I agree. In fact from what I remember, the bigger the cities like Chicago and New York with high reported corruptions are probably less corrupt than your middle-of-nowhere police. When corruption is reported, there is accountability. That's when you know it's working.