His Mother Was Shot By Police. Decades Later, Undercover Cops Stopped His Son. The Fight For Justice Continues!

2025-09-30 06:00:53.324

Lee Lawrence's personal mission for justice was reignited when his son, Brandon, was stopped by undercover police, an incident that brought back the trauma of his mother, Cherry Groce, being shot and paralyzed by an armed police officer in 1985, sparking the Brixton uprising. Lawrence, who was 11 at the time, later became his mother's carer and experienced negative police interactions himself, dealing drugs in his teens due to unprocessed trauma. He founded the Cherry Groce Foundation, running training programs for police on racial bias, advocating for diversity, and promoting restorative justice. His memoir, "The Louder I Will Sing," detailed his family's fight for justice after his mother's death in 2011, which an inquest ruled was contributed to by police failures. His upcoming book, "The Colour of Injustice," chronicles the over-policing and under-protection of Britain's Black community, highlighting systemic racism through historical and contemporary cases and stark statistics: Black people are seven times more likely to die after police restraint and five times more likely to experience force. Despite the Met's apology and a High Court victory, no one was held criminally accountable for his mother's shooting, leading Lawrence to pursue restorative justice and reforms. He remains optimistic about change, focusing on individual officers and raising awareness of historical patterns to break cycles of injustice, intensifying his resolve after witnessing his son's preparedness for police stops.