True Crime

Stephen Lawrence Murder, What the Government Wanted

White rage and 10 seconds to kill

‎It’s April 22, 1993, in south-east London. The day is cool. Forecasts promise a rise from a low of -1.2°C to a high of 10°C. It says to expect light rain and blustery wind. In other words, it’s an ordinary Thursday in London.

Stephen Lawrence is meeting up with his best friend, Duwayne Brooks. Instant best friends from the moment they met at Blackheath Bluecoat School. Stephen and Duwayne still meet up years later even with Duwayne’s move to a new school.

Duwayne’s studying engineering, while Stephen has to finish his A-Levels. An end to A-Levels means Stephen can start training for his dream career, to be an architect.

Blackheath Bluecoat Church of England school closes at 5:30 pm on Thursdays. If Stephen stayed a bit late at school for track or any other sport, he’d be on the move by closing.

Stephen and Duwayne make their way to a relative’s house. Once there, they play video games and hang out.

Ordinary.

Of the three Lawrence kids, Stephen is the oldest. He’s a tall athletic teen, with a face that shows he’s used to smiling. His grin is easy warmth.

Middle child Stuart, is a year younger than his big brother. The boys do what siblings sometimes do. They argue. Disagreements don’t dilute their love.

No denying Stuart loved his protector, “It was great having a big brother. No one messed with me. Stephen was tall and cool and had lots of friends.”

The budding architect, a popular kid, a vibrant athlete. Stephen is set to soar.

The clock ticks. Four hours remaining.

Georgina is the youngest Lawrence child. She tries to keep a low profile. In years to come, Doreen, their mother, will admit Georgina and Stuart struggle to cope.

Four minutes remaining.

From the relative’s house, the surest way home is taking the bus from the stop on Well Hall Road, Eltham. Stephen and Duwayne get to the stop. It’s 10:25 pm. Heading down the end of the road Stephen checks if he sees a bus.

Three minutes.

Eltham neighbourhood is an enclave of poor, white working-class people. It’s a predominantly white area. Ethnic minorities are sparse in Eltham. For Black people, Eltham’s a do not enter locale. Years later Stuart will remark he didn’t know people could be killed for the colour of their skin.

Two minutes.

Back at the bus stop, Duwayne sees a group of white boys moving towards them. He yells out asking Stephen, do you see the bus?

The white boys hurl racial slurs “nigger” back to Duwayne.

Without warning the group of three to five white boys surround Stephen.

Ten seconds.

Lunging at the teen as a unit, they push Stephen to the ground. A raised blade plunges five inches into his front left shoulder. Another, slices deep into his front right collarbone.

Stephen is on his back. He can see the faces of the boys as they sever his major arteries one on each side of his body. A knife punctures his lung. Blood rushes in, displacing his oxygen. He struggles for air.

Four seconds.

Climbing to his feet, he turns to run back to Duwayne. Blood flows from his wounds. He tells his friend to run.

Three seconds.

The fastest sprinter in his school, Stephen, lurches 120m and falls. The coroner will later marvel at Stephen’s ability to travel that distance.

Two seconds.

The white gang, their movement singular, coordinated as birds, runs off.

One second.

It’s 10:30 pm. Stephen Lawrence is dead. An ordinary day. Stephen’s death will bring Britons to their feet demanding racial justice. The police investigation into his murder will be named corrupt, bumbling, and racist. In his name, criminal justice laws will change.

His parents, married for thirty years until his murder, will divorce. The Stephen Lawrence Centre will be erected in his honour. A charitable trust in his name will rise from his spilled blood. His name and lost legacy will be remembered every year from this time forward.

His mother receives the British OBE (Order of the British Empire). She‘s made Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon for her years of equality work. She remembers that she didn’t have time to mourn her child. Fighting to bring his killers to justice stole her bereavement. This is to come.

In the now, Stephen is at the hospital. He’s pronounced dead on arrival.

White Rage Kills

Young white boys. Nothing to do. Full of almighty white rage. Filled up with hate for Black skin. If you asked them why… well, no one’s been able to penetrate their denial.

It took three hundred and thirty years together with millions of dead Black bodies to carve and sharpen the knife edge of lies told on Black lives. Stephen’s killers were born into those lies. Suckled on them. Breathed them in with every inhalation. They absorbed the lies into their flesh, then spit them out in sharp deep cuts to Stephen’s Black body.

Those white boys took Stephen’s life in ten seconds, binding themselves to him for all time. Theirs is an inverse relationship. The brighter Stephen shines, the greater their light dims. As Stephen is praised, they are demeaned. Their roles forever marked. Carved by flesh, sealed with blood.

Villains.

Their actions reanimate the same old story. Irrespective of how much time passes, the odes and songs written, the tale never gets easy. Black skin is not safe near white rage.

Twenty-four hours after Stephen’s murder, the police receive tips identifying his killers. In a telephone box, an anonymous letter is found addressed to the police. On the paper are five names. The names of the boys who killed Stephen Lawrence.

How do these people know? Did they see something? Are they witnesses? Why didn’t they come forward? What are they afraid of?

The names on the letter are the same suspects the police will soon identify. Gary Dobson. Brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt. Luke Knight and David Norris. At the time they kill Stephen each boy is a teen of 16 or 17.

Within three days the police identify the murderers. They begin surveillance.

A month after the killing of his best friend and suffering from PTSD, Duwayne Brooks heads to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). He’s there for a lineup. From the slumped group in front of him, he identifies two of the murderers.

One of the boys Duwayne picks out is named in the telephone booth letter to the police.

Multiple sources literally hand police the killers’ names. People put pen to paper, they write out the suspects’ names. The names are fed to the police. Yet, they’re no arrests until May 1993.

A month after that, it’s June 1993. The MPS drops the charges against the two white boys Duwayne picked out. The police insist Brooks’ ID evidence is unreliable. There is no further explanation.

More time passes. An inquest finds Mr. Lawrence’s murder was an unprovoked racist attack. It determines the perpetrators are five white youths.

The year after Stephen’s murder more suspects are identified in addition to the two Brooks had marked. The suspect list tallies five. The same number on the letters left for police.

The five refuse to cooperate. They refuse to answer questions. They deny all responsibility for Stephen’s murder.

Claiming insufficient evidence, the MPS files no charges.

Three years later the Daily Mail runs a front-page headline naming the five men: Gary Dobson. The Acourt brothers, Neil and Jamie. Luke Knight and David Norris. These are Stephen Lawrence’s killers.

Inviting the five to sue, if they’ve been wrongly named, not one has sued.

More Inquiries

Mangled by incompetence, dogged by racism, and plagued by corruption, Stephen Lawrence’s case has been bungled.

Sir William Macpherson headed the 1998 inquiry leading to the rewriting of Double Jeopardy. The changes allow murder suspects to be retried in light of new evidence. In 2013 Gary Dobson and David Norris are retried for Stephen’s murder.

DNA on their clothes ties them to Stephen. Finally, after twenty years, two of the five are convicted for killing Stephen. Minors at the time of the murder, they’re given life sentences of 15 and 14 years respectively.

The Lawrence family sampled closure with the two convictions. Leaving three killers yet to face justice, which as of 2022, they continue to evade.

Back then, the 2013 independent inquiry is on the horizon. Its report devastates the Metropolitan police. and reveals the sinister lengths institutionalized racism takes to protect itself.

In late 2021, the Labour government records will be unsealed.

The Lawrence family will learn, along with the rest of Britain, that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office wasn’t concerned about the racism that led to a failure of justice.

Government’s first goal was protecting the Metropolitan police. Their second goal is to ensure Black Britons understand that real change isn’t going to happen.