The killer wore a mask. Was it to hide the ugly face of racism?

Dester Coleman probably survived for more than 20 minutes after he was shot in the back - the single bullet from the semi-automatic handgun passing straight out of his chest.

Dester Coleman probably survived for more than 20 minutes after he was shot in the back - the single bullet from the semi-automatic handgun passing straight out of his chest.

With masked gunmen shooting at him, he managed to run into the Young Lion café in Bradford and drag himself upstairs before collapsing on the floor. The paramedics arrived nearly half an hour later, by which time the 27-year-old computer studies student was dead.

That was two weeks ago. Tomorrow, with no one yet charged over the murder, Bradford's black community will march through the city's Lumb Lane area demanding that the police apprehend his killer.

But though Dester's murder will be the focus of the march, members of the black community will also be taking to the streets to draw attention to grievances they believe have been ignored for too long.

Their complaints feature the language often used by Britain's black communities talking about discrimination, inequality and powerlessness in the face of an economically stronger majority. But thecomplaints are being directed primarily not at the white community but at elements of Bradford's large Asian population.

"It is as though no one cares about us because we are black," said one of Dester's friends.

No one knows for sure why Dester was shot outside the Young Lion café on Lumb Lane on 14 July. His friends say that two days before he had intervened in a fight between two women in a pub which, ultimately, led to another black man being beaten.

Witnesses say that on the Friday evening this man, accompanied in a car by two Asians, stopped outside the Young Lion and another altercation ensued, in which threats were made and guns mentioned. An hour later, shortly after 7.30pm, the Young Lion café was under siege from a mob of Asian youths armed with handguns, sledgehammers, hockey sticks, baseball bats and even a shotgun.

Some say the mob was 150-strong. Others that a hard-core group of 20 was later joined by up to 80 others, many of whom were simply onlookers.

"I heard a gunshot. One, two, three shots," said Paul, 32, a friend of Dester's who had been in the café. "I could see two guys with guns. Everyone was looking for somewhere to hide. We hid in the cellar. We could hear more gunshots. We thought we were going to die."

For more than half an hour Paul and three others hid in the cellar, while upstairs Dester lay motionless on the floor as friends desperately rang the emergency services. West Yorkshire Police say a lone, unarmed female police officer arrived in Lumb Lane at 7.46pm, nine minutes after the first 999 call was logged. An armed response team reached the scene at 7.50pm and an ambulance arrived eight minutes later.

Dester's girlfriend of two years, Davina Clarke, said: "I want to know why the police took so long to get there." She identified his body in the mortuary. "Why did it take the police so long to control the situation when they control thousands of people at football matches every week?

"I want to know why it took the paramedics so long to get there. I am not a medic but his chances of surviving must have been better if they had been there."

Four days after the murder, a 20-year-old Asian man was shot in the leg in a nearby street. He told police he did not see his attacker. Last Monday, a gunman in a Vauxhall car opened fire on the Shimla Asian restaurant, peppering the windows and parked cars.

Earlier that evening, police raiding a house for guns were pelted with bricks by a group of predominantly Asian youths. Seven officers were injured.

Despite this, Chief Superintendent Phil Read, divisional commander, said police had received "overwhelming support" from local communities in investigating the disturbances.

Forty officers are assigned to the murder case and police have been mounting highvisibility patrols around Lumb Lane. Five men, aged 21 to 34, have been charged with violent disorder in relation to the attack on the Young Lion café. But with tensions running high, Bradford's black community is worried for its future.

Marsha Singh, MP for Bradford West, said: "The black community in Bradford feels very isolated, very neglected and fearful."

The city's Afro-Caribbeans make up just 6,200 of the 486,000 population. The 66,000-strong Pakistani community forms the bulk of Bradford's 84,000 Asian population. Scattered across the city by rehousing policies, the black community's only focus is down-at-heel Lumb Lane - an area once notorious for prostitutes and featured in the television drama Band of Gold. Here, a couple of black-run pubs, a take-away, a betting shop (also attacked by the mob) a scruffy community centre and - most importantly - the Young Lion café, a gathering place since the 1970s, make up the "Frontline".

"We have nothing here," said Bingi, 36, a spokesman for the black community. "This is all we have while the Asians are trying to control everything. We are saying we have to make a stand."

Part of the tension around Lumb Lane centres on the location of the Markazi Jamia mosque, situated opposite the Young Lion café, which Muslim elders say is a focus for drug dealing.

Habib Ur Rehman, secretary of the newly built mosque, said: "It is all related to drugs problems. The police are not doing anything about it - they are turning a blind eye to it."

But Imran Khan, a local Labour councillor, said the incident was not linked to drugs or race. "This was a clash of personalities between two rival gangs," he said.

Nevertheless, some members of the black community believe they are being driven out of the few places they have. The Young Lion café has been firebombed twice before.

The café is currently closed, the outside covered with bouquets and the boarded-up windows hung with flags of Dester's native Jamaica. No one knows when it will reopen.