A GUNMAN killed in a shootout with police had texted his girlfriend minutes earlier to say: "The feds are following me."

Suspected gangster Mark Duggan, 29, fired a handgun at an armed cop, whose life was saved when the bullet hit his radio.

The officer returned fire with his Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun - blasting dad-of-five Duggan twice in the face before slumping to the ground.

Cops from the Met Police Operation Trident, which tackles gun crime in London's black community, had him under surveillance amid fears he was about to avenge the killing of his rapper cousin Kevin Easton, 23.

Easton, who performed as Smegz, was stabbed to death in front of clubbers in Mile End, East London, in March. Three men aged 23 to 27 are on bail.


Semone Wilson, 29, mother of three of Duggan's children, was devastated by his death near Tottenham Hale Tube station on Thursday evening.

She said yesterday: "He was in a cab. I spoke to him at about 5pm and he asked me if I'd cook dinner. He said he spotted a police car following him.

"He sent a message on his Blackberry saying 'The Feds (police) are following me'.

"And that's it, that's the last time anyone heard from him. By 6.15 he had been gunned down. I kept phoning and phoning to find out where he was. He wasn't answering.

"I rushed down to where it happened. They let me through the police lines but they wouldn't let me see his body."

A photo emerged yesterday of Duggan making a gangsta gun pose with his fingers.

But Semone added: "He was a good dad. I had absolutely no idea he was up to no good. Mark was known to police but he had never been sent down."

His mum Pamela, 52, said: "Mark was my baby. He was a kind boy. He would have been 30 next month. It's a wicked world when a boy doesn't live to see such a milestone."

The shot officer went home after hospital treatment. The Independent Police Complaints Commission was investigating last night. A spokesman said shooting began as cops tried to make an arrest.