Mark Duggan: A man died, and justice has taken its course Mark Duggan was lawfully killed by police who had reasonable grounds to suspect that he was armed and dangerous. That was the conclusion of a jury after a 12-week inquest - and it is traditional in this country to accept a jury's verdict in such matters. Duggan's family, however, feels differently. When the result came in, some supporters of the dead man yelled "murderers" and security guards had to intervene when some began kicking in a door and turning over furniture. "Mark was executed," insisted his aunt, Carole Duggan. Others chanted: "No justice, no peace." Yet justice had taken its course and there was peace after the verdict was delivered. That is hardly a surprise. After all, Duggan had convictions for cannabis possession and handling stolen goods, and had been arrested for murder, attempted murder and firearms offences. He was regarded by the police as a "known gangster who lived by the gun," and it was believed that he was on his way to a drug deal - with a gun - when he was intercepted by the police. Few would argue that the police handled the incident and its aftermath flawlessly, but any attempt to portray Duggan as the victim of "institutional racism" (a phrase used by his supporters, drawing utterly inappropriate comparisons with Stephen Lawrence) is absurd. A false choice is being suggested between believing either that Duggan was "executed" by racist policemen or that the police behaved perfectly. The truth of the situation was judged, with all the evidence put before them, by the jury: Duggan was lawfully killed because there were good grounds to suspect that he posed an immediate threat to public safety. All attempts to politicise this death should be resisted, as should pandering to the Duggan family. It was shocking that the judge led the court in a period of silence to the dead man - as if the proceedings were a memorial rather than an inquest. It was inappropriate for Nick Clegg to say that he "totally understood" the family's anger. It is troubling that some seem determined to use the story of Duggan's death to turn the 2011 riots - which were entirely about criminality - into some damning indictment of racial and class inequality in modern Britain. It was also unnecessary for Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the chief of the Metropolitan Police, to say that his forces need to rebuild trust with black Londoners. Contrary to their claims to the opposite, the Duggan family does not speak for any wider "community" but themselves. They certainly do not speak for the black Londoners who live their lives in fear of people like their deceased son.