This is Danny O'Shea who died last Friday evening near his house in Canning Town. The story was reported but did not gain any significant publicity and you may well have missed it. Danny was chased by a group of black youths and stabbed in the neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene. A tragic waste of another life in some apparent gang related testosterone battle.
Reading the story it struck me that there is something missing here. The police officer investigating the case makes a plea for witnesses but there is no mention of the police dealing with this as a racial attack. There is no reassurance to the community that no stone will be left unturned to bring these offenders to justice; no press conference; no mention of a community reference group being set up to advise the police, monitor the investigation and feed back reassuring messages to the community.
I haven't read any reports of the community marching on the local police station demanding to know what they are doing about this murder. I haven't seen the family in the media suggesting that the police won't take the murder seriously, despite their apparent blase attitude to it all.
I haven't heard a peep from the MP for West Ham, Lyn Brown condemning this murder or offering her reassurance that she will do everything she can to ensure the police investigation is effective. I haven't seen her visit the scene or the family. The latest entry on her website is about her husbands birthday and scoring points regarding the Tory's pension changes.
It appears we have learnt nothing about dealing with race crimes or am I still missing something?
A wrong of which nothing can be said without saying something wrong.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that sometimes the world is going backwards?
ReplyDeleteThe police didn't stab him though did they. And no offence but the police are not exactly squeaky clean on the racism issue. You must know it definitely used to be a problem even if it has been eradicated now.
ReplyDeletere anonymous
ReplyDeleteare you trying to say that the police only shot mark duggan because he was black, i believe they would have done the same if the information was that the gunman was white.the point of the post is that its a black on white racist attack and the media go crazy when is a white on black attack.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070562/Muslim-girl-gang-kicked-young-woman-head-walk-free-court-judge-hears-used-drunk.html
ReplyDeleteNo I'm not Mathew, just making a point that the two situations don't compare.
ReplyDeleteThe post wasn't attempting to make comparisons with Duggan but a number of similar incidents.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't trying to compare them, and there are significant differences, but the O'Shea murder has similarities with Stephen Lawrence. Why is it not being treated as such under the guidelines that came out of the inquiry?
Considering that the Met made a total hash of the Lawrence case do you not think they had a point?
ReplyDelete