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Protest for Kebba Jobe
Shashamaneland, 20.05.2004 15:14

Join the protest march from Camden Lock to Kentish Town Police Station, beginning at 2pm Saturday 22nd. May.

Kebba 'Dobbo' Jobe of Gambian origin, a popular character and friendly face in and around Camden Lock, was murdered by Kentish Town Police beside the canal, for suspected possession of cannabis, a Class C drug.

It is claimed he died of asphyxiation after being thrown to the ground and forcefully restrained by an un-named officer, who has not been suspended, but is still at work. Chillingly, Dobbo's cousin, Ibrahim Sey was also killed by London police during arrest in 1996.

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Why protest ?
20.05.2004 15:50

Why are you calling for protest ? You don't know what happended, or do you assume that every death in police custody must be suspicious ?

Let's get the facts first before knee jerk reactions

Sky


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Yes
20.05.2004 16:18

All deaths in police custody are suspicious.

Simple As


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HIT THE STREETS 4 JUSTICE
20.05.2004 16:43


If we are to wait for the 'facts' we will have to wait until January 2005 when the police have penciled in their inquest into Kebba's death. However several witness were present as the incident ocurred at 2o'clock on a busy saterday afternoon. The police clearly used excessive force in there their arrest of Kebba on suspicion of selling weed!, witness' say the police used extreme force, the officer landing with all his weight on Kebba's back. It is believed Kebba died there by the lock due to injuries sustained by police violence.

Day in and day out black men are being stop searched and roughed up in the Camden area People are shocked by Kebba's death although many feel police tactics in Camden were going to end up like this.

Friends and Family of Kebba are organising this protest on saterday and people should come along. The only demands are that the police should explain their actions

why was kebba's family refused access to their sons body for 10 hours after his death?

why did it take so long (several days) for the police to place an incident witness board at the scene?

why did it take so long (several days) for the police to issue a statement concerning the incident?

To show support and solidarity for our fallen brother please come to the demo
2o'clock Camden lock Saterday 22nd May

and we will march on Kentish Town Police Station

alfredo


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daily gathering
20.05.2004 17:20


Friends and family of Kebba gathering outside Kentish Town police station everyday between 6 and 8 to keep up the pressure and hand out leaflets:



alfredo


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Not Knee-jerk
20.05.2004 19:17

Sky
Read the previous posting on this. There were lots of people around the lock at the time -and a shed load of laughing policemen/community 'wardens'/specials I noted. Thjey have been harassing people around the lock area - particularly the homeless and ethnic minorities. A cousin of his has already been murdered by the cops. He leaves a 2 year old daughter without a father.

mark


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The Point is...
20.05.2004 20:40

If undercover cops had never troubled Kebba in the first place (because he was black) and left him to go about his business, unmolested, he would still be alive. Therefore, the police are culpable for his homicide and MUST be held accountable.

End Of


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Enrager story
21.05.2004 00:35

Police Murder In Camden (London)
Posted under Police by admin on Tuesday May 18 2004 @ 04:12PM BST
 http://www.enrager.net/newswire/stories.php?story=04/05/18/3166399

Also, I was in Camden tonight, and saw one guy being arrested, as well as two searches. The cops locked him into a space about 2.5 feet across between two wire grills in the back of the van. It's scary to think that he might also have had something in his throat as he was being shoved in to that tiny space.

'independent' police complainst commision statement:
 http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/camden_death_further_info_180504.pdf

This sounds like systematic recklessnes with people's lives on the part of the cops. See you on saturday.

Annie Besant


---------------------------------
how about some sense
21.05.2004 02:45

The police don't make the laws, the enforce them.

People in Camden are sick of dealers.

The police's job is to arrest the dealers, otherwise they are accused of providing an inferior service and somehow must be "racist" as Camden and London in general is multiracial.

Maybe this chap shouldn't have been dealing drugs in the first place. If people didn't store drugs in their mouths then this wouldn't happen. Didn't his parents tell him not to stick stuff in his mouth that wasn't food when he was a kid or what.

The first reports said he broke his spine rather than choked, so much for bothering with the facts eh, just goes to show people should stop and think before jumping to conclusions, thats what you bang on about the police needing to do isn't it? So how about you stop the hypocracy.

sense


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Sense?
21.05.2004 07:44

>The police don't make the laws, the enforce them.

In my experience the police are only two happy to create laws on the spot whenever i like - the 'i've told you already' law, or section 14 of the Public Order Act, where as of last year the cops only need TWO people to assemble before they can start imposing directions - prevously this was twenty. Also, this is a spurious distinction - if laws were not enforced then wouldn't really be laws, they'd just be moralistic writings by parliment.

Theoretically any more force or violence than is necassary during an arrest by the police is an assault, and taking the victim as the cops found him, therefore murder, but by my own argument above i'm bound to conclude that this may actually be a propaganda statement by parliment & the courts, and not actually the law at all.

>People in Camden are sick of dealers.
You're very quick to jump to the conclusion that Kebba Joe was dealing. By all accounts he was a popular man locally, not that that should matter. Yes, the post-mortem said he had a bag of something herbal lodged in his throat, but nothing about how much - it could just as likely have been for his own use.

We've heard that he was sitting chatting with a friend before he was killed. Is that what people in Camden are sick of? In any case, you seem to have remarkably little regard for the fact that somone was killed. I've pretty much lost interest in the question of whether he was dealing. It's a common and particularly nasty police tactic to smear people they kill with drug allegations in the hope that it will diminish the importance of their lives in people's eyes, although not one that's been used so far in this case, afaik.

If the cops didn't violently arrest people for no good reason this wouldn't have happened. The police know very well that people often carry drugs in their mouths, so if they think someone's carrying something they and the do nick them they need to be extra carefull to make sure the person can breathe.

I don't know where the reports came from that his spine was broken - perhaps that's what it looked like to someone before the post-mortem report came. AFAIK no-one did anything relying on that particular information. The police are an instition we all have experence & knowledge of, and of course that affects the conclusions we are led to. Remember that Kebba's cousing Ibrahima Sey was killed in recent years by cops with CS gas.

Annie B


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I'm sick of Police
21.05.2004 09:07

So...Sense, because Camden residents are sick of alleged dealers, they should all be executed, without trial by jury, at the roadside?

Skunk


---------------------------------
Time for action
21.05.2004 18:59

Thing is, police of all varieties have been crawling all over Camden for weeks, in response to the 'not enough police on our streets' campaigning by some residents groups and the Camden New Journal (in many ways a good local paper but not very far-sighted on this one). Camden sent out a survey this week to some residents, which includes a fascinating series of questions about 'anti-social behaviour'. Types of asb which residents are asked if they have witnessed or reported, and if so, to whom, include 'groups of teenagers hanging around', and 'people sleeping rough'. We are all being trained to fear, not the government that is dropping bombs on the people of the world, nor Camden Council who are trying to sell of our homes, or the police (whose actions speak for themselves) but the 'enemy within' - the 'anti-social person'. And what does this anti-social person look like if they are not a teenager or street homeless - yup, you guessed, black, loitering, maybe smoking weed, maybe not,
 definitely up to no good, maybe even not from this country, an asylum seeker - how many bogeymen can you be at one time before everyone thinks you are fair game?

But actually it don't cut the ice and a lot of people are not fooled. Camden Lock towpath is mucky and most local people avoid going there, leaving it to the tourists. But no-one I know thinks it was anything other than a police murder. The problem in fact is not that but that they are blase about it. 'Did you hear the fed killed someone at the lock on Saturday?' 'Yeah. Bastards' is the level of reaction on my estate. The dialogue needed is not one about convincing some prat who posts here that the police kill people but one that can move those who know they do to join together and do something about it. Tomorrow's demo might be a good start. Let's see....

N


---------------------------------
I've also witnessed police in Camden
21.05.2004 19:36

Passing through Camden on a bus recently I witnessed policemen searching 2 Black men who were waiting at a bus stop down a side-street. They made the men turn out their pockets - all they could search since the men weren't carrying any bags or anything. The men's response to the police was really good-humoured. Even at a distance it was so obviously harassment. I wish I had got off the bus and protested.

pearl


---------------------------------
whatever
22.05.2004 01:21

People loitering around IS intimidating to law abiding people especially women. It IS antisocial.

Drug dealers are a problem. They are scum. Often they mug people as well, and their addict customers certainly do. Try looking at the statistics for crime in Camden on the Met website.

Things DO need to be done. Most people, the law abiding people not the scumbags, want the dealers sorted out. That requires proactive action. He died cos he was stupid enough to put drugs in his mouth, funnily enough you lot said he broke his back first, so much for knowing the facts (kneejerk reactions).

As for the comments about the search.How the hell do you KNOW it was harassment? YOU DON'T. Why? COS YOU WERENT THERE, AND DON'T KNOW THE CIRUCMSTANCES.

You're just prejudiced against the police. TRY GETTING THE FACTS.

sense


---------------------------------
One law for some
23.05.2004 01:37

Hey, Sense (not short for sensimilia, I’d guess)

It depends who is doing the loitering doesn’t it? Group of tourists straggled over pavement, so no-one can pass? No problem, good for business. Group of very loud, drunken middle class solicitors etc outside the ice pub on the lock? Ditto. Group of teenagers (boys and girls, black and white) with a few cans of lager and cigarettes between them, hanging on a street corner – anti-social. Homeless drunks near tube station – anti-social. Message is, got the cash, loiter away. Got no cash, get off the streets. Simple.

As for dealers, I’m not fond of them either, but cannabis is a Class C drug. The same yuppies getting drunk outside the pub on the lock will smoke some when they go home. They’ll buy it off someone else like them.

And as for jumping to conclusions before you have the facts, if you want us to hold off on the police’s guilt, hold off on that of the victim. You don’t know if he was a seller or a buyer or the whole ‘herbal substance in mouth’ is a lie.


N.


---------------------------------
The protest
23.05.2004 01:50

And the protest was good. Loud, strong, defiant. Should probably have taken the police station to pieces but you can't have everything!

N.


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Thought's on Kebba Jobe's death in police custody
23.05.2004 14:56

Some of the discussion on Kebba Jobe's death seems to be missing the point completely.

We don't yet know the full story surrounding Kebba's death, which is why the United Families and Friends Campaign, the coalition of relatives and friends of those who have died in custody, were giving out leaflets at yesterday's protest appealing for witnesses to come forward. But even if Kebba was dealing weed, does that really make it acceptable for the police to take his life?

The special powers of arrest and detention that police officers possess comes with a special responsibility to protect those in their custody. Too many deaths in police custody point to a failure to provide this protection and Kebba Jobe's death raises serious concerns about the way he was restrained and the use of excessive force amounting to a neglect of duty.

Moreover, we should question why black people make up a disproportinately high number of those who die violently in police custody. I have been to too many inquests and listened to too many police officers talk about someone who has died in their 'care' having "superhuman strength" and other racist stereotypes about black people. I expect we'll be hearing the same rubbish about Kebba Jobe to try and excuse the use of excessive force against him. Once we get into arguing that 'drug dealers are scum' and therefore maybe 'deserve' to die, we're simply reinforcing and condoning those stereotypes. And who else might be classified as somehow less than human and therefore denied the right to life? Asylum seekers, perhaps? Thanks to the press, they're never popular. What about the homeless? Or squatters? Or people involved in protest?

Either we expect a duty of care for ALL citizens, backed up with sanctions against police officers who use excessive force, or we allow the police to act with impunity. And then any one of us, innocent or guilty of a crime, risks the possibility of death if we are arrested. Is that really what we want?

Kevin, United Families and Friends Campaign
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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