Police admit making ‘mess’ of Mark Duggan aftermath
The Metropolitan Police today admitted making a "mess" of the aftermath of Mark Duggan's death and promised to be much quicker in talking to relatives of people shot by officers in future.
Assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told MPs the force had taken far too long to talk to Duggan's relatives in the hours after his death in 2011.
Anger over Duggan's death triggered a series of riots across London that lasted for several days.
"I think what you saw in 2011 was a hesitance," he told the home affairs select committee.
"What you would see today is regardless of the niceties the important thing is whoever it's going to be, somebody needs to talk to the family as quickly as possible and we would certainly do that rather than stand on ceremony and make a mess of it."
He admitted officers had been "unnecessarily hesitant" in speaking to relatives but claimed that Duggan's "complicated extended family" had made this difficult.
"It sounds like I'm offering excuses and I don't mean to, " he added. "We didn't do it as well as we should do."
Rowley was spat on by protestors and had missiles thrown at him last week, as he made a statement outside the trial which cleared an unnamed Met officer of unlawfully killing Duggan.
Rowley told the committee he had decided to "let go" the spitting incidents but was investigating one case of missiles being thrown at him.
He also revealed the Met had stationed 1300 officers in the streets surrounding the vigil to Mark Duggan last week.
He said the police had information that several "extreme left wing groups" had been planning to cause trouble at the event but that none had occured.
