Report on Probe of Black Teen’s Killing Rocks Britain

Britain’s government Wednesday promised to overhaul the country’s race laws after releasing a scathing report on the 1993 slaying of a black teenager that blames police “racism and incompetence” for failing to bring his killers to justice.

The murder case is Britain’s Jasper, Texas, and Rodney G. King rolled into one: Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death at a London bus stop by a gang of youths yelling racial epithets, and his family was violated again by a police department fraught with racism that mishandled the investigation from beginning to end.

None of the five prime suspects in the killing of Lawrence has been convicted, and no police officer has been punished for bungling the case.

A nationally televised docudrama, a play called “The Color of Justice” and heavy media coverage have engraved details of the Lawrence case on public consciousness and prodded a predominantly white country that sees itself as colorblind to take stock of its racial attitudes.

The 333-page inquiry into the murder investigation accuses the police of “a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers” in its handling of the case and recommends sweeping changes to national laws as well as to the department known as Scotland Yard.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the report was a clarion call for Britain to confront “the racism that still exists” in society.

About 94% of Britain’s population of 58 million is white, although about 20% of London residents belong to ethnic minorities. The country’s national institutions, from government to courts, armed forces to police, are headed and largely staffed by whites.

As Lawrence’s parents looked on, Blair told Parliament that the report “must lead to new attitudes, a new era in race relations, a new, more tolerant Britain.”

The report vindicates Neville and Doreen Lawrence, Jamaican immigrants who have fought hard to keep their son’s case in the public eye and to demand justice. But that provided little solace to parents clearly still aching over the loss of their son.

“No one is serving time for the murder of my son,” Doreen Lawrence said at a news conference after the report’s release. “To me, institutional racism is so ingrained, and it is hard to see how it will be eradicated out of the police force.”

But the Labor Party government, which launched the inquiry, says the police must try.

Home Secretary Jack Straw, the Cabinet minister in charge of police, said laws banning racial discrimination will be broadened to cover now-exempt police and government departments. This would mean police officers and public servants could be sued for racism.

He also ordered an inquiry into all unsolved killings in London that are suspected of being racially motivated.

Other proposals include measures to boost relations between police officers and ethnic minority groups, setting targets for the recruitment of black and Asian officers, cracking down on racist behavior by police officers and ensuring better treatment of all victims and witnesses.

In addition, a law may be changed so that suspects can be tried twice for the same crime if important new evidence is discovered.

The five suspects in the Lawrence case--Jamie and Neil Acourt, David Norris, Luke Knight and Gary Dobson--were arrested weeks after the killing, but all have gone free.

In July 1993, initial murder charges against two of the suspects were dismissed for lack of evidence. A “private prosecution” by the Lawrences in 1995 against the other three--a rare procedure in Britain--ended in acquittal. The judge ruled that the evidence was insufficient and directed the jury to declare the defendants not guilty.

The report issued Wednesday was prepared by a special commission of inquiry, chaired by retired judge William Macpherson, which held 69 days of public hearings, heard 88 witnesses and received 100,000 pages of evidence.

It determined that the handling of the case was flawed from the moment the officers arrived at the scene of the stabbing in a working-class neighborhood of South London. It said they failed to deliver first aid to Lawrence as he lay on the ground bleeding to death.

“There can be no excuses for such a series of errors, failures and lack of direction and control,” the report said.