Demonstrate against police custody deaths, remember Smiley
16 April 2011, 12pm South Bank Gym, 124-130 Wandsworth Road (Vauxhall tube)
SMILEY CULTURE, Britain’s first rap star, died on Tuesday 15 March with a single stab wound to the heart. His family, friends and the black community as a whole are in shock and demand answers.
The Serious Crime Squad had raided Smiley’s home in Surrey at 8am and arrested him. Police claim they let Smiley go into the kitchen on his own “to make a cup of tea”, where he stabbed himself with a knife so big it came out the other side of his body.
But Smiley’s nephew, Merlin Emmanuel, told a 300-strong meeting in Brixton the next day, “Smiley had a great deal to look forward to… The police have a lot to answer to.” Black activist Lee Jasper added, “It is inconceivable that police officers on a drugs raid would let Smiley into a kitchen full of knives on his own.”
We cannot leave the investigation into the incident in the hands of the Independent Police Commission, who failed to charge the policeman who killed Ian Tomlinson at a demonstration two years ago.
We demand a public inquiry with full access to police records, and the police involved immediately suspended and barred from speaking to their colleagues.
No cover-up – justice for Smiley!
