Channel4News YouTube Channel video: Home Affairs correspondent Simon Israel reports on revelations that Stephen Lawrence's family was targeted and smeared by police. The parents of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence were treated as a threat to be smeared, according to a former undercover officer with the Metropolitan Police Service. Uploaded June 24, 2013. http://youtu.be/iXjGX35InhQ
BBC-TV video: The MP for Eltham & Plumstead, Clive Efford, who was involved in the call for the original 1997 inquiry into the case, describes the very grave nature of the revelations that some members of the Metropolitan Police -as well as people connected to the Home Office in the '90's- have not only been withholding damaging evidence about the truth surrounding the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, but been involved in even further corruption via an organized effort to smear the Lawrence family. MP Efford, a Labour Party member and the Shadow Secretary for Sport, further stated that he believed that the only way the truth will all come out is via a new inquiry that does NOT involve the "police investigating police" agreeing that it was "not going to be good enough" for the British people. And he's 100% correct.
Video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23030577
Despicable! Growing national backlash against sickening British police scandal that's only getting worse over time - Prime Minister David Cameron and entire U.K. literally staggered by the depths of despicable revelations re organized undercover police efforts to withhold evidence and smear the family of an innocent teenage boy murdered in 1993. Stephen Lawrence was murdered, and since then, it seems that Police and govt. bureaucrats have intentionally taken aim at his family to keep them quiet via orchestrated smears!; Damning news videos by BBC and Channel 4 News
Doreen Lawrence: 'police resources were used to monitor our campaign' http://t.co/iq1jvf2kpJ via @guardian
— Clive Efford (@CliveEfford) June 23, 2013
The Stephen Lawrence inquiry must be recalled to investigate what information the police kept from them and who decided to withold it
— Clive Efford (@CliveEfford) June 23, 2013
@TelePolitics The public will have no confidence in the police investigating themselves on this matter it has to be completely independent
— Clive Efford (@CliveEfford) June 24, 2013
Much of Britain has woken-up lately feeling like a thunderous punch has been delivered to their collective stomachs, out-of-the-blue, while they were minding their own business this wet summer.
Except that was then quickly followed-up with a swift billy club to the back of the neck and a taser to their groin.
Groggy and barely able to stand, they hold on as best they can and wonder what sordid fact is coming down the pike next in a police scandal that gets every one's emotions boiling in a flash.
And with that comes the larger possibility of yet another flash point.
Me being me, being interested in the very wide variety of things that I am, which, fairly often, confounds and frustrates both family and friends, and listening, reading and consuming by the ton the digital media that I do every week with a very heavy U.K. flavor, especially radio and TV, I've been following the Stephen Lawrence case for years.
BBC's timeline on the case:
But Monday morning while looking for something else, I found this powerful BBC News video
that falls hard on the heels of all the dozens of news articles, columns, blog posts and radio program discussions so very upsetting and despicable in the tale it told, that I found myself unable to wait any longer.And when I received my daily Snowmail from London after Noon on Monday from Channel 4 News that gives me the rundown on the news stories they'll be doing later,
https://mailing.channel4.com/public/read_message.jsp;jsessionid=0;apw63?sigreq=1937640847
I was absolutely sure of it. http://www.channel4.com/news/
The Guardian
Police 'smear' campaign targeted Stephen Lawrence's friends and family
Exclusive: former undercover officer Peter Francis says superiors wanted him to find 'dirt' shortly after 1993 murder
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, The Guardian
23 June 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/23/stephen-lawrence-undercover-police-smears
The Guardian
Stephen Lawrence: Cameron deeply concerned by smear campaign claim
PM calls for investigation into claims undercover police officer was part of operation to smear family of murdered teenager
Alexandra Topping, Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Patrick Wintour, guardian.co.uk,
24 June 2013 04.24 EDT
Alexandra Topping, Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Patrick Wintour, guardian.co.uk,
24 June 2013 04.24 EDT
The Telegraph
Who’s keeping tabs on the undercover cops?
Stephen Lawrence's family are not the only ones concerned about their activities
By Philip Johnston
8:43PM BST 24 Jun 2013
I had to get it out of my system before I literally blew a gasket, and so have deleted many prior links to stories about the case that have been attached to the Draft for many months, given that they no longer seem nearly as important to the overall picture, given what we've learned of late.
Most of you reading this now know as well as I do that there are some things that are more than merely dramatic literary license and fictional threats delivered in film or criminal procedural drams on TV, but actually common knowledge.
One of those things that we know to be true is that former policemen in prison have a very difficult time surviving.
But knowing what I know about this case and the way that some undercover police and govt.
bureaucrats seem to have attempted to orchestrate a PR lynch mob against the family of a teenage boy killed for no logical reason other than sheer hate, I only hope it's even worse in prison for the people involved in this case, since they have been drawing a public paycheck for years as guardians of civility, without people they encounter having any idea of the true depths of their immorality.
Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe responds to allegations in the media about undercover officers conduct in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation:
http://content.met.police.uk/News/Commissioner-statement-following-allegations-about-undercover-officers/1400018214005/1257246745756
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Speaking of incompetent and/or unethical police, I will soon be posting some information here on the blog about what I and many other concerned and well-informed Hallandale Beach residents believe is the completely unsatisfactory performance over the recent past of the Hallandale Beach Police Dept.
I will be mentioning and raising questions about several specific situations and episodes that I am all-too-familiar with, as well as daily policing practices that STILL defy logic and reason despite how obvious it is that they bear no semblance of common sense.
But continue they do, ridiculous or not...
They continue because the HBPD was, is and will likely continue to be led by people who really are NOT that interested in improving the performance and reputation of the police force and making hard choices, so that it at least measures up to what HB residents, taxpayers and small business owners have a reasonable right to expect, considering the giant over-sized slice of the city budget the HBPD currently consumes.
The ratio of HB taxpayer money spent on policing to the actual HB taxpayer's level of satisfaction is completely out-of-whack.
Things really need to change dramatically there soon.
In part, before the HBPD pension problems become so much worse that even the sleepwalking local news media finds themselves unable to ignore the problem any more, and HAVE TO start showing up at HB City Hall in person -which they hate, and not without reason.
Oh the ignominy of them showing-up at 400 S. Federal Highway, knowing perfectly well before they finally find a place to park in the too-small public parking lot that they will be met with a stonewall just like so many HB residents are when they want to know what's really going on at HB City Hall.
Imagine that, reporters actually (finally!) asking hard questions about how large those pension obligations are, and actually reporting what the percentage of the city's future budget they'll be consuming, though the truth is that we all know most of the local print reporters would rather just be leaving messages from their officefor the city's spokesman, messages that will never be returned.
You know, "unavailable for comment."
Try looking up "unavailable for comment" in the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel's archives PLUS the words "Hallandale Beach" and see how many times that comes up.
If yours truly only had a five-dollar bill for every time a newspaper article said that about someone at HB City Hall since i moved here, we'd already have that next trip to Sweden in the Fall already paid for -airfare, lodging and some really good food this time!
