SUSPICIOUS MINDS
Regarding the case of Shanika
Edwards, whose baby was
snatched (News, Big Issue 434).
While everyone should sympathise
with any mother under such
circumstances, Mrs Edwards is
suffering from the same problem
as Doreen Lawrence: a lack of
understanding of police criminal
investigative methodology which
she interprets as 'racism'.
Whenever a child or relative
disappears or dies in similar
circumstances, the parents and
other close relatives are always
suspects, and with good reason.
Susan Smith, who claimed her
car was hijacked by a black man
with her two young sons on the
back seat in the US, is currently
serving life for their murder; she
drove the car into a lake.
Charles Stuart, who claimed
a black gunman seriously
wounded him and killed his wife
committed suicide when the
finger of suspicion rightly pointed
at him; at the time, a black man
in custody on another charge was
the prime suspect.
If the police had not had nasty,
suspicious minds then these two
cold-blooded killers might have
gone free and just as unthinkably,
innocent people (black people in
these cases) might have been
falsely convicted.
A BARON
Published in The Big Issue, April 3-May 6 2001, No. 435, page 46.