警察的目标真是保护我们吗？

上周，英国终于就Mark Duggan事件进行了判决。在英国以外，可能并没有多少人知道Duggan这个名字，但是，他在无意间引起的事件却臭名昭著。Duggan于2011年8月遭警察枪击致死，警察称Duggan当时持有枪支。伦敦的托特汉姆区因此爆发了抗议活动，并在随后升级，居民认为警察忽视了他们的担忧。很快就涌出了诸多问题，并开始爆发骚乱——人们烧毁了房屋、车辆和公交车，商店也被洗劫一空。暴力活动蔓延至伦敦的其他地区以及英国的其他城市，一共持续了五天，留下了大量被烧毁的建筑，为政客和供职于报纸评论专栏的业余社会学家提供了数月谈资。

现在，审讯结束了，事实和解释也已全部公之于众，同时也做出了裁定。Duggan尽管是个令人讨厌的角色，但实际上，当警察向他开枪时，他手无寸铁。不过，评审团认定警察向他开枪并导致其死亡的行为是“合法的”。尽管担心重复两年半之前发生的骚乱，但在物理意义上，一切都保持着相当的平静。但是，在这种平静的表面之下，英国的紧张局势却在发酵。

许多来自各方的政客都将这场骚乱视为单纯的犯罪活动——一群伺机趁火打劫的人利用了一个年轻人的死，抓住了因此呈现在他们面前的机会，尽可能多地从商店和住宅窃取财物。但是，这种解释所欠缺的，正是上周的审讯结果已证实的，即公众和警察之间的信任正在不断瓦解。托特汉姆区的居民不相信警察会为他们的利益着想，也不相信警官将因其枪击Mark Duggan的行为受到法律的审判，而这正是导致出现最初的抗议活动，并在随后升级的原因。

在过去几年间，与警察关系断裂的人并不只有那些参加骚乱的人。学生因反对削减课程或增加学费而发起的抗议活动也曾遭到镇压，警察经常会采取“圈围”策略——也就是说，学生们被全副盔甲的警察所包围，被迫连续数小时站在街上，只有在其身份得到确认、完成拍照之后才能获准离开。在一次抗议活动中，警察从后面袭击了一名无辜的路人，并导致该名路人丧失性命——同样，该名警官并没有受到任何重大的影响。

一般来说，英国的年轻人和工薪阶层正逐渐意识到警察并不能代表他们。他们察觉到警察代表的是由有权有势的人组成的权力机关，他们的主要目标就是侵扰、逮捕和监禁任何想要以任何方式挑战权势的人。警察的目标和他们所保护的政客及商人的目标一致——让穷人生活在贫困中，拿走他们的自由、金钱和生计，将其交给已经非常富有的阶级。Duggan审讯的结果只不过是强权和保护强权的警察相互勾结的最新印证而已。

但在NRGLab 和 Ana Shell Fund，我们相信社会有其不同的一面。首先，处于贫困境地，并不能让一个人成为暴力镇压的目标，其次是减少专制监管的支出，投入更多资金创造条件，让所有人都能拥有更好的生活——社会支出、财富的再分配，用公众基金为公众谋取利益，包括实惠的可再生能源和住房供给。

从英文版翻译而来。原文于 1月30, http://annie65j.blogspot.com/2014/01/are-police-really-there-to-protect-us.html

[ Mark Duggan, 时持有枪支, 政客都, 犯罪活动, 学生因反, NRGLab, Ana Shell Fund ]

Are the police really there to protect us?

Last week, the UK finally saw a verdict passed on the case of a man named Mark Duggan. Duggan’s name might not be well known outside of that country, but the events he inadvertently sparked are infamous. Duggan was killed in August 2011, shot by police officers who claimed he was holding a gun. The resulting protests in the Tottenham area of London escalated as residents felt the police were ignoring their concerns. Soon, things erupted, and a riot broke out – houses, cars, and buses were burned, and shops looted. The violence spread to other parts of London and to the rest of the country, and raged for five days, leaving numerous iconic images of burned-out buildings and giving politicians and the amateur sociologists of the newspaper opinion columns material for months.

And now the inquest is over, the facts and interpretations have all been laid out, and the decision has been reached. Duggan, despite being something of an unsavoury character, was in fact unarmed when the police shot him. Nevertheless, the jury decided that it was ‘lawful’ for the police to shoot and kill him. Despite fears of a repeat of the riots of two-and-a-half years ago, things have stayed fairly calm in a physical sense. But underneath the surface, tension is bubbling in the UK.

Many politicians from all parties portrayed the riots as mere criminal activity – bands of opportunistic looters who were exploiting the opportunity presented to them by a young man’s death to steal as much as they possibly could from shops and homes. But what this interpretation misses, and what seems to be confirmed by the conclusion of the inquest last week, is the increasing breakdown in trust between the public and the police. The people of Tottenham did not believe that the police have their best interests at heart, and did not believe that officers would face justice for their actions in shooting Mark Duggan, and it is this that led to the initial protests that later escalated.

The rioters aren’t the only ones whose relationship with the police has broken down over the past few years. Students protesting against cuts to courses or increases in tuition fees have been faced with repression, often being ‘kettled’ by the police – that is, surrounded by heavily-armoured police, forced to stand on the street for hours, and only allowed to leave after being ID’d and photographed. At one protest, an innocent passerby died after a policeman attacked him from behind – again, the officer did not face any serious repercussions.

Generally speaking, young and working class people in the UK are increasingly realizing that the police do not represent them. They recognize that the police are an expression of the authority of those with power, and that their main aim is to harass, arrest, and imprison anyone who challenges that power in any way. The aim of the police is the same as the aim of the politicians and businessmen who they protect – to keep the poor in poverty, and to take away their freedoms, money, and livelihoods in order to give them all to those who are already rich. The outcome of the Duggan inquest is simply the latest example that shows the collusion between the powerful and the police who protect them.

At NRGLab and the Ana Shell Fund, we believe in a different vision of society. One in which being poor doesn’t make you a target for violent repression, and one in which less money is spent on authoritarian policing, and more on creating the conditions for a better life for all – social spending, redistribution of wealth, and the use of public funds for public goods like cheap, renewable energy and housing.

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