Scandal of London shoot RELAND ROUTINE!

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Pd ings was no checkpoint on the ember 13 INLA members happy troops shot an RUC road. Seamus Grew and Roddy man driving a car. This time On November 25 Michael Carroll were slaughtered; and the victim survived - and Tighe was killed, and Martin on December 27. 19-year the Army made an apology. McAuley seriously injured, old Patrick Elliott was shot when the RUC strafed a shed dead by troops after stealing apology for the killings. without giving them a £ 20 from a chip shop.

On January 11 trigger- said on Tuesday that there Seven unarmed people were shot dead in two months last year in Northern Ireland TS Suppose the police shooting of Stephen Waldorf, last Friday 14th, had taken place ivorthern Ireland. We would scarcely have heard of it.

There would have been no immediate prosecution of the police gunmen for attempted murder, no detailed accounts in the mass circulation press of how the victim was shot again and EWEN im Britain, last midas shooting was not the last ten years, me people have been shot dead by the police. In every case coroner's juries decided it was justifiable homicide though three of them (Gail Kinchin, July - 1980; Barsharat Hussain and Mohammed Hanif, February 1973) were unarmed.

Blair Peach was beaten to death by police in April 1979. Several people have died suspiciously in police cells.

Several people were also killed by the SAS in the Iranian embassy siege - after they had thrown down their weapons and surrendered.

According to official figures, the police carry guns on an average of 15 PHOTO: REPUBLICAN NEWS again and beaten about the showed that at least the head as he lay bleeding. majority of the bullets were In November and Decem- fired at short range into the ber last year, RUC and car while it was stationary; British Army gunmen shot and local people say there dead seven unarmed people.

On November 11 three Republicans were killed.

According to the RUC they had crashed through a checkpoint. But the distribution of, bullet holes in the car they were travelling in chance to surrender. On Decoccasions per day in London alome: Small wonder that they go too far' every so often.

An armed force - deliberately separated off from society; soaked with authoritarianism, racism and sexism; structured to be a disciplined, unthinking sup- PHOTO: REPUBLICAN NEWS port for the established order commanded by Tory die-hards; and regularly used to beat down struggles of workers and the oppressed -is a standing danger to working people. That is what the police force is.

We should fight for every scrap of democratic control over it that we can get - as part of the fight for its dismantling and replacement by organised labour movement/ community patrols. was "no suggestion of mistakes" in the shootings.

Moderate, conservative There has been no Catholic politicians and clerics have called it "execuTory minister James Prior tion on suspicion".

The IRA described the November 11 shooting as "an act of war". The other shootings are part of the war, too - a war by the British army against the militias of the oppressed Catholic community, which inevitably is also a war against the community as a whole.

It is also a war to maintain an oppressive and untenable set-up. The way out can only be the victory of the fight against the oppressive and artificial partition •of Ireland, through the unconditional withdrawal of British troops and the reunification of Ireland with the maximum autonomy for the Protestant community compatible with the rights of the Irish people as a whole.

In the meantime the murderous methods of state repression pioneered in Northern Ireland gradually, but inevitably, spread back to Britain, with the extension of special squads and special weapons like plastic bullets.

We don't know who gave the orders for Friday's shooting, The prosecution of two detective constables may be an attempt to find scapegoats and deflect th question.

The Mout erab elected body, but on the Home Secmetary. Labour Greate Council has been ing for police seTT It should demand access police records, and the nigh to question police officers so that there is a full publi inquiry into the shooting (not merely an impers police operation).

We should call for me merely political control, Bat operational control, over the police by elected bodies.

We also need to know the answer to the quest are these shoot-to-kill tactics linked to the recema amina of Kenneth Newman, former head of the RUC, 00 man the Metropolitan Police

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Socialist Organiser 116, 1982; page