Institutional racism in the police?

The women were reported missing Saturday, their bodies found Sunday , this was not a slow response

We listened to the interview yesterday and then read about the case.
My DH was in tears when he heard what these 2 policemen had done and the lack of 'investigation' about the crime. My DH's words to me were "There are times when I feel ashamed to be a human being". We were sickened because of the behaviour of the 2 policemen.

Three things shocked us:
- The policemen taking selfies of themselves with the two dead women in the shot.
- Them posting it to others and public via social media.
- A boyfriend of one of the women, after searching the area for 10 mins, found the murder weapon and her glasses.

These two policemen are currently on bail.

These were not photos taken for evidence.
Two women missing should have prompted a much quicker response.
What search was done of the area by the police? Very little as the boyfriend found it!

I don't think that anyone is refusing to acknowledge, or accept, that there may be racism in the police force trisher; but what they're trying to point out is that not all police officers are racist. And therein lies the discussion.

I do wonder why it is that people aren't prepared to accept that there may be racism in the police force they are after all only people. It is always difficult to adjust to people who are different to us and we all make judgemnets about people, sometimes because of the way they dress, speak or behave. The fact that they are a different colour is just another difference. It is there and it can be dealt with but there has to be an acknowledgement first.

Mistakes are made.

Yes they are but all the statistics show that more are made with black people than with white.

It is always possible to find counter stories but they are not relevant and do not "balance things out!". Statistics do!

Statistics also show a faster "escalation" in such cases with black people

My goodness - there are still people who will jump in with stories from twenty years ago about such incidents happening to white people.

Of course, misinformation and misidentification of people and/or properties can happen to anyone. However, I think there hasn't been much evidence that such incidents happen to white people on anything other than a very rare basis.

On the other hand, I think many non-white people (especially young people) would be able to recount several recent instances where they have been stopped on the street or in their cars - and have been treated in a less than courteous and respectful way.

If you see the photo of the boy involved in this particular incident it is quite obvious he is only young. It was said that the father and his son were thought to match the description of two black males on bikes witnessed at the scene of a stabbing. In north London there are many black people, and some of them on bikes. It may be reasonable to approach a person seen in the general vicinity of a criminal incident, who might conceivably match the description of the perpetrator, and politely ask some questions. But is it reasonable to jump out at someone in an aggressive and threatening way - especially a young person? The woman who witnessed and filmed the incident thought the behaviour of the officers concerned was "disappointing" and "disgusting" and she perceived it as "racist".

I was woken up at 3am by police hammering on my door. When I opened the door they asked for a man, who lived further down the road.

The names of the houses were similar. Mistakes are made. The man they had come for was white.

Stop and search had to be reinstated due to the huge number of younger men carrying knives.

No need to resist posting anything on here, I doubt you would get anyone who disagreed with you saying it was a very upsetting happening for the man and his son.
Just to add though, a member of my own family had a similar ordeal about twenty years ago ( and he is white!) but he looked like a description of a suspect and was in the same vicinity.It happens, as does police raids on wrong houses in the middle of the night.

i resisted posting that article about the boy and his father on the charity cycle ride.
i expected a lot of push-back on here.
which doesn't say much for my moral fibre.
esp as it sums up the issues under discussion, as the onlooker attested.
imagine what it feels like to be so often treated like a second-class citizen in your own country.

Eleothan I think a 36 year old man was arrested at the start of the investigation but has been let go.
Handcuffing black males who are stopped and searched seems to be the norm, even when they are cooperating

I'm a bit confused by this. I thought there was a news report saying that someone had already been apprehended for the murder of the two women, but just now on the news I think they said the search continues.

When there is evidence of corruption, discrimination or negligence should we say "they get it right more often than they get it wrong". That may well be the case, but when we are talking about people who are supposed to be upholding the rule of law it is especially important that they are seen to act within the law too and apply the law equally to everyone. Even if the vast majority of lawyers, doctors, nurses, police officers, etc, etc, behave impeccably, that does not minimise the need for effective action to be taken against those who do not - and further training undertaken where necessary.

When incidents such as the following happen, it is quite understandable that there is continuing concern about racism (whether conscious or unconscious) in the police:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/28/black-teenager-on-family-cycle-ride-injured-during-aggressive-police-arrest
Guardian June 2020
"Huugo Boateng was taking part in a charity bike ride with his father along the River Lea in north London when he says he was grabbed from his bike by a plainclothes police officer, threatened with a stun gun and fell face first into thorny bushes.

"The 13-year-old told the Observer: “I’d turned around to see if my dad had caught up behind me, and suddenly this man came out of nowhere. He was crazy angry and shouting. I got scared because I thought he might be mugging me or trying to give me corona so I ran, but there was nowhere to go but in the bushes.”

"While he was down on the ground, the teenager says the officer pointed a Taser at him and threatened to shoot. The officer then arrested Huugo and put him in handcuffs. Further down the towpath, his father, Andrew, 43, was told to get on his knees and put his hands behind his back. Andrew was also handcuffed. The two were detained, suspected to have been involved in a stabbing in the area.

...." Huugo suffered lacerations to his face and bruises on his legs, and spent that night sleeping on his parents’ bedroom floor, anxious not to be alone.

...................."The officers said they were responding to a stabbing in a nearby park

The arrests were partly filmed by river boat resident and photographer, Louise Paton who had responded to Andrew’s pleas for someone to film what was going on. She described the scene as:

“racial profiling at its worst. The mood was defensive, borderline aggressive and patronising,” she said. “I was disgusted. It really drove the issue [of racism] home for me. The way they spoke to Andrew, the way they treated him and kept him in handcuffs so long when he could prove so quickly he was completely innocent and the wrong person. It was just so disappointing to see.”

"The family were visited by a community officer later that evening. “Huugo didn’t want them to come in so they stayed on the doorstep and asked if we were OK,” said Andrew, who works at City University. He is also active in local projects including coaching a youth football team and volunteering for the outreach programme Kickoff@3 , which is co-run by a black Metropolitan police officer, Michael Wallace.

“I couldn’t vouch for a more humble and more dedicated member of the community,” said Wallace. “The irony is that Kickoff@3 is about building good relationships with youth and the police, and Andy is instrumental in helping with that programme. The bike ride he was doing was organised by us – we were raising money for a homeless charity and a domestic violence one.”

This incident is widely reported in other papers but the Guardian has a video link of the footage taken by Ms Paton.

How about we discuss the racism in the police? The crime may or may not be solved. The racism will remain.

Agree lemon

There is always the feeling after an awful event that ‘something should be done’ but how about we all take a deep breath and allow the police to try and crack this case without
Finger pointing and disapproval when they are the ones who have to tease out the facts and not us.
It’s a large public space ( the park) and as well as those at the party, there could have been anyone lurking about, or innocently walking their dog late at night and enjoying the cool air.
This isn’t about being ‘defensive’ of the police, because where there is wrong doing it will be rooted out, but of understanding that the police get things right far more than they get things wrong.

trisher - I really don't need reminding of the quote thanks.

see the govt now has recognised that they are at higher risk, and are sometimes not taken seriously enough in what they report, so complications occur. i heard a consultant make that very point on the radio a couple of days ago.

Oh good, I missed that.

anyway, sorry OP; you probably want to get back to the wider subject that you started.
it seems to me that some people do not seem to grasp the concept of institutional racism.
they get very defensive about the individual they know in the police. which is not the point.
i can see how frustrating all this is.
it's like going round in circles. how can anything be changed, improved, if it is not even recognised or understood.
there was a similar discussion recently about black women and maternity care.
i see the govt now has recognised that they are at higher risk, and are sometimes not taken seriously enough in what they report, so complications occur. i heard a consultant make that very point on the radio a couple of days ago.

i know the area where the crime happened, and someone i know lives just a few yards from the fields.
it was not the entrance used by the party people.
but is literally the end of her road. just a few houses away.
i would have thought that police would do house-to-house enquiries. but no. i sent her articles about it, and that was the most information she had. it was over a week after discovery that the police said to look out for a person with an injury acquired since saturday 6th june.

Thanks Madgran77 I sometimes feel as if I have fallen down a rabbit hole on GN. I read the views of people like Leroy Logan and listen to what they have to say then come on GN where the assertations that this can't be happening are so many and so vocal that I have to go back and read the articles again to reassure myself. I really don't understand why people are reluctant to investigate or listen to those with more experience than themselves but insist institutionalised racism can't possibly exist.
Iam64 John Stuart Mill, said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

trisher - of course I agree that people are well able to keep their racist views quiet, especially on training courses. That's much less likely to happen when co working in the community, or going out to support other colleagues involved in mental health or safeguarding issues. Some joint investigations run over months. You get to know people during that kind of work.
I'm not attempting to deny racism, misogyny in the police but constant attacks on the integrity of an entire work force is not likely to lead that work force to be able to be open, more likely to be defensive and in denial.

as to the hideous photos, the news report state they were shared with a group including members of the public.
that word, including, suggests that other were not members of the public; so presumably, in the context, were police.
as to the location of the party, it is quite near to the address of the older sister, Bibaa, whose birthday it was.
she was a senior social worker in children's services, in a home counties area. not london.
where she lived and where the party took place is 71% non white british.
her sister, an artist and photographer, lived a little further away, in the next borough.

trisher I agree with you and have read Leroy Logan's views.

So even if this is unconscious bias, the fact the police force know these figures but have not decided to question why this is happening and haven't addressed it - it is institutionally racist."

That is a perfect description of an example of how an organisation can be institutionally racist whilst its services are being delivered by many individual, dedicated people. Saying an organisation is institutionally racist is NOT saying that everyone who works in the organisation is a racist.

That misunderstanding is I think the cause of problems quite often in discussions on race and racism.

How much either applied in the sad case of the 2 women who were murdered, we just don't know.

Iam64 I just fail to understand why people will not even admit the possibility of instutionalised racism, particularly in the Met. Of course I'm not as experienced in working with police officers as you are, but I would suggest that there are a great many people about who are well able to make all the right noises when they need to, but equally able to share views that would be considered unacceptable with others. I wouldn't expect anyone to come up to me and just make racist comments.
I can only go by people who have worked in the Met or with them
Leroy Logan
Leroy Logan, 62, is a former Met officer and ex-chairman of the National Black Police Association.
Twenty years after Macpherson, he says the force remains institutionally racist.
Logan says improvements were made post-Macpherson, such as hate crimes now being identified, but adds: "We still don't have the promotion of equality and justice in the organisation
"Black officers are disproportionately subjected to discipline compared to their white counterparts
"You still see black staff hugging the lower ranks and they aren't breaking through to the upper levels of the organisation."
He adds: "We still have disproportionality in stop and search, where a black person is five times more likely to be stopped by police than their white counterparts.
"They are 20 times more likely to be stopped under section 60 roadblocks and you are more likely to be Tasered if you are black.
"So even if this is unconscious bias, the fact the police force know these figures but have not decided to question why this is happening and haven't addressed it - it is institutionally racist."
I don't claim to have any expertise only awareness of what others have said

There was a recent case when a black police officer was sacked because she deleted rather than reported an inappropriate image her sister sent her. the sister had expected police action and hadn't realised that by forwarding the image she, herself was not only committing an offence but making her sister complicit. A police investigation took place when another individual who also received the image shared the outrage of the person who forwarded it but also, decided to inform the Police. The police action resulted in the sacking of a formerly respected and valued BAME officer and prosecution of the family member who shared the image
That must reassure some who accuse the Met of institutional racism. Chewbacca, you expressed hope the police investigation would track all involved, I think this recent case confirms it will.

trisher, I don't want to get into a row about this dreadful case. I have worked closely with the police over 40 years in safeguarding. I was involved in training police officers over a 10 year period. I wonder if you have extensive, or much, experience of working with the police. I have. I'm left with very few negative memories. My overall experience was of excellent officers, dedicated to public service and with a genuine desire to help others.
No one will dispute there are some racist officers. I challenge any large public body with no members of staff who hold views most of us would find abhorrent to step forward.