Talk:Murder of Richard Everitt

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A fact from Murder of Richard Everitt appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 November 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the perpetrator of the murder of Richard Everitt was never apprehended, because members of the gang who killed him fled to Bangladesh?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Murder of Richard Everitt.

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Richard everitt[edit]

I PASS BY RICHARD'S MEMORIAL SITE MOST DAYS WHERE IT IS NOW A TOWER BLOCK I AM TRYING TO CONTACT HIS SISTER LUCY WHO SOME TIMES STAYED WITH HER FRIEND IN LULWORTH TOWER BLOCK IN AGAR GROVE . 85.255.234.40 (talk) 21:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Drummond Street Posse[edit]

The "Drummond Street Posse" is mentioned in a couple of sources in relation to Richard's murder, but in contradictory ways.

Mothers Against Murder And Aggression (a charity who are now defunct) previously claimed that the "Drummond Street Posse" was the name of the Asian gang that killed Richard. See https://web.archive.org/web/20100301213309/http://www.mamaa.org/infalre.html. This is weakly supported by http://thecnj.myzen.co.uk/camden/2007/100407/news100407_01.html, which vaguely says that the Posse was "implicated" in Richard's murder,

But Outlook India at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/backstreet-boys/204223 describes them as a gang who have been defending Drummond Street from aggression by white gangs following Richard's death, and implies (by omission) that they had nothing to do with Richard's killing.

And finally http://www.thecnj.com/camden/2008/041008/news041008_02.html disputes that they are a gang at all: "there is still debate both inside and beyond the police as to whether Camden groups like the Cromer Street Massive, Drummond Street Posse, Centric Boyz and Queens Crescent Crew are any more than loose affiliations of teenagers with no organised criminal element".

All in all I think that the sparse sources are too inconsistent with each other for the gang name to be mentioned in the article in any capacity, but thought I'd mention them in case anyone wants to discuss. If there are reliable sources clearly establishing that the Drummond Street Posse really was a criminal gang and that the attackers were part of it, then that would seem worth including. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 13:58, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

https://web.archive.org/web/20060408155830/https://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006160132,00.html also claims the gangsters were part of the Drummond Street Posse. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 14:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Racially motivated"[edit]

This page has on a few occasions claimed in the lede that the attack was "racially motivated", a claim that was recently restored by @JJNito197. The restoration was part of undoing the remaining non-reverted edits from a spree of vandalism by @Mabz02's, most of which removed well-cited information or baselessly defamed Richard, for instance by accusing him of having a history of racially abusing his killers. The thing is, though, I actually think removing this particular claim was - perhaps by accident - a helpful edit by Mabz.

Whether Richard's killing was "racially motivated" is ambiguous both factually and semantically, and in the article we quote both Frank Dobson saying there was no racial motive and Boris Johnson saying it was not "racist" (which you might or might not consider equivalent to "not racially motivated"). I don't think the article should take a side on this dispute.

The reason for the ambiguity is the interrogatory nature of the attacks, both on Mark Andrew and Richard Everitt's group; both of them were asked about Liam Coyle (who the gang were seeking revenge on) and attacked only after they denied knowing him. One interpretation of this is that the attackers weren't motivated by racial animus at all, but rather were just going after white boys because they thought they'd be likely to know Liam, and attacked because they didn't get any information about him. In that case, it is arguable that the attack isn't properly described as "racially motivated" (though even then, that the gang was interacting with Richard at all did in some sense owe to him being white, and I suppose you could argue that it is therefore correct to call the attack "racially motivated").

Of course, it's certainly not clear the attack wasn't racially motivated, either. One can just as well read the facts and think revenge on Liam was mostly a pretext to go out and hunt white boys for sport.

Given the ambiguity, I think we should refrain from stating either that the attack was or was not racially motivated. We should just spell out the uncontroversial facts that lead many people to characterise it as a racial attack - including mentioning clearly in the lede the victim's and the attackers' races and the fact that they had beef with another white boy - and let the reader make up their own mind. ExplodingCabbage (talk) 12:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]