British police on Tuesday announced that they were halting their investigation into the 27-year-old racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, which had led to a soul-searching examination of discrimination issues in the UK, for lack of new evidence.
On April 22, 1993, while waiting for the bus with a friend, Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old black student of architecture, was assaulted and stabbed by five young white people in Eltham (south-east London). This murder had deeply marked the country.
“The investigation has now entered a ‘inactive’ phase, but I have assured Stephen’s family that we will continue to process any new information,” said Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick.
“The investigation into Stephen’s murder will also be reviewed regularly for (investigating) any other possibility of investigation that may arise, for example with the advancement of technology,” she added.
Police failures in investigating the crime – for which two men, Gary Dobson and David Norris, ended up being convicted in 2012 – resulted in a report in 1999 that sounded like a thunderclap in calling Scotland Yard of “institutionally racist”.
“We were able to get two convictions (…) but we know that other suspects were also involved in the events that took place that night and it is deeply frustrating that we were not able to translate them into justice, ”Cressida Dick said.
So that the murder of Stephen Lawrence is not forgotten, his mother campaigned for years, and created an organization – the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust – to help underprivileged young people who want to get into architecture and design.
Doreen Lawrence was named a Life Member of the House of Lords in 2013.