Police officers assaulted and detained a California man who was filming them earlier this month, a clear violation of his right to document public police actions. Kwesi Guss, who is Black, witnessed the end of a police chase in Richmond, California, involving a separate individual who had been speeding. That person had pulled over near a parking lot, and was in the process of turning himself in to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Nearly two months after the May 24 shooting in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, part of the truth has been released, report Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
The Metropolitan Police tasered a Black man several times on Chelsea Bridge Road in London. As they advanced on him, the man fled and jumped into the river Thames. He was rescued from the river by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The man is as yet unnamed. As usual, people have to rely on civilian recordings of the incident to see what actually happened.
Operation Withdraw Consent shared the footage a bystander recorded:
1/3
Trigger Warning : distressing content of the moment leading up to a man's death
We are saddened to learn that the Black Man repeatedly tasered by Met Police and pursued until he fell into the River Thames had died pic.twitter.com/uOhytw74L5
— Operation Withdraw Consent (@OWC2022) June 5, 2022
The police have said they received reports that the man was holding a screwdriver. As the video shows, he is clearly in some distress.
As the police taser him, he falls to the ground screaming in pain. He yells something at the two officers advancing on him. They then tase him again and the man rolls on the ground, twitching. This happens yet another time. The man then runs over a barrier at the side. As the officers pursue him, he jumps over the railing and into the Thames.
We can trust neither the mainstream media nor the police to accurately report what happened.
The police said that after their officers tasered the man he:
subsequently entered the river.
A number of outlets also used similar euphemisms. The Independent said the man “fell”:
The BBC also said the man fell:
Sky News made it sound as though the man simply fell into the Thames and was then pulled out:
By saying that the man “fell” into the river, the media are neatly following the narrative the police set out. There’s a huge difference between saying that the man was involved in an incident with tasers and “entered” the river, and saying that he jumped into the river after being repeatedly tasered.
Many people on social media discussed these awful policing tactics. Others also noticed the terrible reporting:
Please amend the headline – he jumped. @BBCNews https://t.co/eSpgLdUoAS
— Graham Wettone (@grahamwettone) June 4, 2022
Why is the media reporting, man dies after falling into the river Thames as police tried to detain him.
When footage clearly shows, he actually jumped off the bridge.— WillDrover (@bigwildrover) June 5, 2022
Commentator Michael Morgan said:
We spoke about this recently via Twitter Spaces. The Met Police have a lot to answer for. Black people beware, they will use a taser on us without a moments hesitation. The UK’s biggest gang is still institutionally racist. pic.twitter.com/por3F3TUI6
— Michael Morgan (@mikewhoatv) June 4, 2022
Meanwhile Deborah Coles, director of charity INQUEST which monitors state-related deaths, said:
Serious scrutiny needed on the multiple use of taser by police officers. Very disturbing video footage shows no attempts at de escalation and a Black man in obvious distress. More Tasers results in more deaths and serious injuries. https://t.co/baSSTp1kIA
— Deborah Coles (@DebatINQUEST) June 5, 2022
And outgoing Goldsmiths student union president Sara Bafo said we must withdraw power from the police:
The @metpoliceuk repeatedly tasered a Black man until he fell into the River Thames.
I’m raging because this will keep happening until we withdraw power from the police until we no longer rely on a structure that is designed to kill us.
— Sara (@SaraBafo1) June 5, 2022
Moreover, journalist Lorraine King explained how Black people are more likely to be tasered for longer than white people:
A lot of people are asking why the race of the black man who sadly died when he fell into the River Thames after being Tasered three times is relevant.
It's relevant because black people are twice as likely to be Tasered for longer than a white personhttps://t.co/CFOOXx10cp
— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) June 6, 2022
Figures from the Home Office a year ago show:
Black people were four times more likely to have force used against them by Met police officers than white people, and five times more likely to have Taser-like devices used against them by the force.
As King said above, Black people are also more likely to be tased for longer. A report from the Independent Office for Police Conduct found that Black people are more likely to have a taser fired at them for longer than 5 seconds. They also said:
In the majority of cases involving either allegations of discrimination or common stereotypes and assumptions, there was evidence that the individual concerned had mental health concerns or a learning disability. This supports findings by others that the intersectionality of race and mental health can increase the risk of higher levels of use of force.
If the media reports the police’s actions in a passive or sanitised way, it only enables them to continue to be violent towards Black people. This man did not “fall” into the river. He died trying to escape police violence.
Just last month, Operation Withdraw Consent said:
We want our communities to be given the power to respond to the 80 per cent of non-criminal incidents that the police respond to – as we believe that a community response, rooted in resolution and meeting individual needs, would have better outcomes.
We must withdraw our consent from aggressive policing. And in order to do that, we need to be able to understand and call out journalism that’s in service to the police and not the public.
Featured image via Twitter/screenshot – Operation Withdraw Consent
This post was originally published on The Canary.
This article includes a recounting of self-harm and discussion of suicide.
A mother has spoken about how police strip searched her 15-year-old child, who later tried to kill herself. The teenager’s family is now bringing a civil case against the police.
This comes just after Child Q’s harrowing experience of being strip searched by police. In fact, police have strip searched roughly 50 children a week over the last five years. The mother, who spoke to the BBC, shared details of her daughter’s traumatising experience from December 2020. This was the same month in which Child Q was strip searched.
The BBC detailed that Olivia (name changed to protect identity) is mixed-race and autistic. Olivia’s mum said that:
Olivia had been out with some friends when they had an argument with two boys, who called the police and alleged they were the victims of an attempted knife-point robbery. She was searched by police at the scene and nothing was discovered. Olivia and her friends were then arrested.
Olivia’s mum (who the BBC report calls Lisa – another pseudonym) warned the police over the phone that Olivia had been self-harming. Olivia handed over a small blade that she used to self-harm. Whilst changing her clothes, a sharpened stick fell from her clothes. It was another item she used to self-harm. But when the police noticed it, six officers handcuffed her and “forcibly stripped her”. They then carried out what the BBC called:
an intimate search in the presence of male officers.
It bears repeating that Olivia is a vulnerable child who was in a distressed state. Why the police thought it acceptable to seize her and strip search her is beyond comprehension. Olivia’s mum also said that:
Olivia was actually on her period at the time too. And they cut off her underwear in front of these grown male officers. She was absolutely distraught.
In the time since she was strip searched, Olivia has continued to self-harm and has also attempted suicide.
What happened to Olivia is enraging and terrifying. This is yet another example of shocking police behaviour. It is, however, also important to pay attention to the fact that Olivia is mixed-race and autistic. There have been many instances in which police have treated autistic people in a violently ableist manner.
Earlier in May, a 12-year-old Black autistic boy was allegedly assaulted by a white woman. Antwon Forrest was left with a deep gash in his head. Avon and Somerset police initially told his family that they would take no further action. But the force have now classified the incident as a racist attack. And they’ve also apologised for their response to the case. They will be reviewing it, but their initial actions speak for themselves.
Moreover, in 2020 a police officer dragged an autistic boy across the floor in a special-needs school in Liverpool. Incredibly, the officer was part of a “safer schools” unit. Christopher Cruise was convicted of assault; he retired before he could be sacked. The officer was fined and didn’t serve any time in prison. A relative of the boy who was assaulted said:
He has autism and he struggles a lot. He is much younger in his head, more like a five-year-old.
We are all absolutely furious. His days are hard enough already.
Also in 2020, a parent came forward to say that police pointed a taser at their 12-year-old autistic son. The parent said that when a pair of shoes no longer fit her son, he became extremely distressed:
He was an 11-year-old boy in autistic distress – overwhelmed, frightened, anxious and unable to regulate these feelings.
When neighbours called the police due to the noise, the parent said that:
Four police officers restrained my son and placed him in handcuffs. Having heightened sensitivity to touch, this increased my son’s discomfort to intolerable levels. Without freedom of movement, his primary mechanism of self-regulation – pacing and rocking – was restricted.
While the police dragged her son away kicking and screaming, the boy yelled out:
Help me Mummy, help me Mummy, I’m being kidnapped.
There are almost certainly many other cases in which the police have abused autistic people.
The epidemic of police violence against Black people, disabled people, immigrants and other minorities shows that neurodiversity training isn’t enough. Training isn’t going to deal with the rot at the heart of British policing. The police are institutionally racist and ableist, and there’s no amount of training that will change that. As the Independent’s race correspondent Nadine White argued, Black children are under attack by police.
The Metropolitan police have referred themselves to a police watchdog over the incident with Olivia. But as law magazine The Justice Gap reported:
More than half of these searches were conducted by the Metropolitan Police and a disproportionate number of black and mixed-race children were subjected to this process.
A police force which can strip search children and leave them traumatised is a police force that is beyond repair. Olivia’s experiences are haunting. A mixed-race child with autism was violently attacked by officers who outnumbered her. This is indefensible. But we know the usual suspects will try to defend such behaviour.
We can’t rely on the police investigating themselves – we have to rely on each other. It’s now more important than ever to observe the police in public. Cop watching organisations are available to help people learn how to legally observe and document police behaviour. As for police violence behind closed doors, we must speak loudly and clearly that we will not let them keep hurting our children.
Featured image via Unsplash/Colin Lloyd
This post was originally published on The Canary.
Last March, Texas Democrats demanded that Rep. Chip Roy resign after the Texas Republican made blatantly hateful statements during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes against Asian Americans. Just days earlier, a racist gunman targeting Asian women had gone on a killing spree in Atlanta that left eight people dead. Roy called for bringing the “bad guys” to “justice” — and favorably invoked the legacy of lynching in Texas, where a white supremacist campaign of organized terror led to the extrajudicial murders of more than 600 people between 1882 and 1945.
Asian American lawmakers were outraged. Rep. Ted Lieu of California tweeted about a Los Angeles lynch mob that murdered 17 to 20 Chinese immigrants in 1871. Meanwhile, Roy was angered by advocates who warned Republicans that calling COVID-19 the “China virus” put Asian people in danger. He refused to apologize for favorably invoking the legacy of lynching, insisting in a statement to the Austin-American Statesmen that his critics were “thought policing” like “Communist China.” Roy’s stunt, of course, had not been censored; it was picked up by media outlets and presumably put into the congressional record.
This week, Roy was going on again about “thought police” — this time, in a speech against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, which Democrats rushed to update and pass in the House in the wake of the racist massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo. The bill would require federal agencies to document and report domestic terrorism threats, including white supremacists and neo-Nazis inside law enforcement agencies. Roy said the legislation would “target us for what we believe.”
All but one House Republican voted against the domestic terror prevention bill, including lawmakers who supported a previous version back in 2020, just a few months before former President Trump’s lies about a stolen election would inspire a right-wing mob to invade the U.S. Capitol and call for Vice President Mike Pence to hang in the gallows (which apparently pleased Trump). Senate Republicans unanimously blocked the bill, and with it, any debate on gun safety and hate crimes in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers before police finally entered the school and killed him.
The domestic terrorism bill would not provide law enforcement with new powers or authority to surveil and make arrests; instead, it would direct federal agencies to establish offices focused on the threat of white supremacist terrorism and report any findings to Congress. Republican opposition to the bill appears to have been triggered by its focus on white supremacists, who are widely considered the greatest domestic terror threat. Thanks to Trump and others on the far right, white supremacist ideologies such as “replacement theory” that motivated the Buffalo gunman are going mainstream among GOP voters.
Like other Republicans, Roy argued the anti-terrorism bill would be used by the Biden administration to target right-wing activists. He repeated a debunked conspiracy theory about the FBI investigating parents who speak out at school board meetings. (The FBI said it only looked into credible threats of violence against educators, which ballooned last year as Trump and the GOP whipped conservatives into a frenzy over what they erroneously call “critical race theory” and other issues.) Since the bill focuses on extremists on the right, the argument goes, Democrats would have used it to target political opponents while ignoring violence on the left.
It’s no secret white supremacists and far right extremists have claimed far more lives with violent attacks in the U.S. than leftists. Trump and other Republicans attempt to obfuscate this fact by conflating property damage during left-wing protests with “terrorism,” even if no one gets hurt.
Meanwhile, progressives rightly scrutinized the anti-terrorism bill, given the government’s long history of using “anti-terrorism” efforts as a cover for spying on Black activists, anti-war groups and Muslims. Abolitionists and others on the left argue white supremacy is a dangerous feature of modern law enforcement, not a bug that can be stamped out by more police. Black and Brown communities are notoriously overpoliced, and critics say policing has always been necessary to uphold white supremacy in the U.S.
Citing opposition from civil liberties groups to a previous version of the legislation, progressives in the House amended the terrorism prevention bill to protect activists, protesters and anyone exercising their constitutional rights. They also narrowed the definition of “domestic terrorism.” The amended language is broad, and there is intense debate over how to define “violent” speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. However, the additional language was meant to protect Americans of all political stripes.
Whether the civil liberties amendment would have protected activists from the prying eye of the government is still up for debate, as is the efficacy of relying on federal law enforcement to prevent white supremacist violence. Law enforcement routinely fails to prevent mass shootings, even when perpetrators were previously flagged by police. The Uvalde school district has its own police and a plan for responding to active shooters, but police who were at the scene are under intense scrutiny for waiting more than an hour to bust into a classroom where the gunman took most of his victims.
However, given that the white supremacist attack in Buffalo was premeditated (and, according to some of the bill’s advocates, may have been prevented if white supremacist activities were more thoroughly tracked), it’s not a surprise that groups such the NAACP supported the legislation and hoped it could prevent the recruitment of more white supremacists into police ranks.
The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that opposed a previous version of the bill in 2019, did not respond to a request for comment on the new amendment. The office of Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, a Democrat who championed the civil liberties amendment, did not respond to follow-up questions over email.
Of course, Republicans’ opposition to the bill had nothing to do with its potential impacts on marginalized groups. Instead, they argued that the legislation would target his supporters for what they think and believe, even after Democrats added civil rights “guardrails” to the bill to protect people on any end of the political spectrum. And Republicans rejected the focus on identifying white supremacists working in law enforcement.
A close reading of the failed legislation shines some light on the GOP’s actual intentions. The legislation would have directed an inter-agency effort through new offices at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and the FBI. Those offices would be required to document domestic terror threats, including the threat of overt white supremacists infiltrating the military and the police at every level of government. These are very real and well-documented threats. White supremacists and neo-Nazis in law enforcement are trained to use weapons and wield the violent power of the state and the authority it brings. Activists also argue that lynching is not a thing of the past, and police departments, the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Services are already sources of racist terror whether or not avowed whites supremacists are wearing the uniform.
Under the bill, terrorism prevention offices would have been required to produce reports on their findings and turn them over Congress on a biannual basis. Democrats would undoubtedly have made the reports public, which could have helped expose how deeply overt white supremacy is burrowed into the uniformed services. In the age of Trump, fascist gangs and far right militias that recruit cops and soldiers — including groups like the Oath Keepers who stormed the Capitol and now face charges — are proud members of the GOP base.
Republicans have vocally supported “anti-terrorism” efforts in the past, when Muslims or racial justice activists were the targets. The GOP’s nearly universal opposition to the latest anti-terrorism legislation, which focuses on white supremacists, is a clear signal to armed extremists and racist police that the Republican Party has their backs.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
An ex-police constable who posted racist WhatsApp memes mocking the death of George Floyd has been warned that he could face a jail sentence.
James Watts was serving with West Mercia Police in 2020 when he shared the “grossly offensive” material in a group chat which included former colleagues at a Warwickshire prison.
Birmingham Magistrates’ Court was told the 31-year-old was charged after a police inquiry into 10 memes posted in May and June 2020, including one featuring a white dog wearing Ku Klux Klan clothing.
Other memes posted by Watts, who accepted in police interviews that the messages were racist in nature, featured images of a kneeling mat and a monkey.
Another message, which was found after a Twitter user claimed a serving policeman had posted racist memes, mocked a line in the movie Jaws.
Prosecutor Richard Purchase told the court:
Mr Watts was a probationary police officer with West Mercia Police.
Four of them (the memes) explicitly referred to George Floyd and the ongoing protests, and to some extent, mocked his death.
The other six appear to be more general racist memes.
Watts, of Clifton Road, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, pleaded guilty on Friday to 10 counts of sending a grossly offensive or menacing message by a public communication network.
The former prison officer appeared in the dock alongside West Mercia Police Constable Joann Jinks, who entered not guilty pleas to three counts of the same offence.
Jinks, 41, from Redditch, Worcestershire, was granted unconditional bail to appear for trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on August 23.
Adjourning sentence on Watts until next month, the Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram told him:
I will seek a pre-sentence report.
At this stage I am not going to rule out custody. There are aggravating features in this case.
The court has to bear in mind the considerable reputational damage there can be by this sort of offending, when one is dealing with police officers.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) announced in April this year that charges had been brought against Watts and Jinks under the Communications Act 2003.
The police watchdog said in a statement announcing the charges:
Our investigation began in June 2020 following a referral from West Mercia Police after intelligence was received by the force.
Both defendants were serving West Mercia Police officers at the time of the alleged offences.
By The Canary
This post was originally published on The Canary.
Content warning: this article contains descriptions of murder and mentions of rape
As Sabina Nessa’s killer was jailed for life, Priti Patel used the sentencing to further her own agenda. The self-promoting Home Secretary tweeted that tackling violence against women and girls was “central to my Beating Crime Plan”. But as Sabina’s sister, Jebina Islam, pointed out, the family has received no support at all from the government.
Lack of support from yourself and Boris Johnson just shows how ‘important’ it is to tackle male violence to you guys.
Sabina was horrifically assaulted and murdered by a man in September 2021. Her death is just one example of how the state has failed Black and Brown women and girls, both in life and after their death.
Let’s take a few examples. There’s 12-year-old Shukri Abdi, who drowned in a river in June 2019. She was failed by the state at all levels. Just one day after her death, before they had even properly investigated, Greater Manchester Police released a statement ruling out suspicious circumstances. In fact, the Detective Inspector warned the public of the “dangers of playing near or swimming in rivers”, implying that Shukri, who couldn’t swim and wouldn’t go near rivers, had just been playing. Shukri had been bullied at school, and was last seen with a group of children by the river. The school launched their own internal investigation into the bullying, which the family stated was completely inadequate.
In December 2020, a coroner concluded that Shukri’s death was an accident. Meanwhile, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) released a report dismissing every single one of Shukri’s mother’s complaints, stating that the police’s lack of action was not racially motivated.
In January 2021, the lawyers of Shukri’s mother launched a civil action against the police, stating that Greater Manchester Police had failed on many levels in the investigation, and that the police were institutionally racist.
Maz Saleem, part of the Justice4Shukri campaign, said at the time:
The family has maintained the firm position that they have been unfairly treated by GMP from the outset due to their status as a refugee family.
There’s also the case of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, who were stabbed to death in a park in Wembley in June 2020. Their family had to search for the women themselves after receiving no immediate help from the Metropolitan Police. Their mother, Mina Smallman, said of the police:
I knew instantly why they didn’t care.
She continued:
They didn’t care because they looked at my daughter’s address and thought they knew who she was. A black woman who lives on a council estate.
When the police did finally come to the scene, officers took selfies of themselves with Bibaa and Nicole’s dead bodies. Mina said:
If ever we needed an example of how toxic it has become, those police officers felt so safe, so untouchable, that they felt they could take photographs of dead black girls and send them on. It speaks volumes of the ethos that runs through the Metropolitan Police.
In October 2021, an IOPC investigation into the force’s actions found that the level of service by the Met was “below the standard that it should have been”. These words will, no doubt, have added insult to injury for the grieving family.
And then there’s Blessing Olusegun. The 21-year-old was found dead on a beach in Bexhill on 18 September 2020. No-one has been charged with her murder. Sussex police treated the case as “unexplained” but not suspicious, with a postmortem stating that she died by drowning.
Blessing’s mother said:
We maintain that the circumstances of her death were suspicious and should have been treated as such by the police.
She is working with a legal team to do:
everything in our power to find the answers we are looking for.
Speaking out about the handling of her daughters’ murders, Mina Smallman says she has been gaslit by the police. But if we look at just a few examples of police racism and misogyny, it will perhaps come as no surprise that Black and Brown women and girls are consistently failed by the state.
Back in 2018, the IOPC began the Operation Hotton investigation into police officers’ conduct at Charing Cross police station. In January 2022, it issued a “learning” report to the Met, highlighting:
Inappropriate behaviour by officers, including, racism, misogyny, harassment and the exchange of offensive social media messages.
The IOPC report stated that officers attended a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child, and found “numerous messages” in various police WhatsApp groups “about rape and ‘raping’ each other”. One police officer even sent messages saying:
““I would happily rape you”; “if I was single I would actually hate fuck you” and “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”.”
The IOPC refused to name one ex-police officer, who:
repeatedly used a racially offensive term during a Christmas social event while off-duty and his phone was subsequently found to contain offensive images and comments about women, people from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.
Another ex-police officer was found to be:
exchanging inappropriate messages about women, drugs and domestic violence
They were also accused of:
sending texts containing offensive and inappropriate language, including some of a racial nature.
Then, there’s at least 194 women who have been murdered by the police and prison system in England and Wales. Back in May 2021, Channel 4 News reported that 129 women had come forward in the last two years to report that their police officer partner was abusing either them or their children.
Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that when a white woman or girl is murdered, the state and the media are more likely to pour their resources into a case. The Canary’s Sophia Purdy-Moore has pointed out that:
As of February 2020, the Met Police has spent over £12m on the then 13-year search for Madeline McCann. But Aisha Ahmed from Minority Matters says that when it comes to investigating missing young people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, police “claim to be under-resourced”.
Perhaps the best known example of racial disparity is the case of Sarah Everard, who was murdered by a Met police officer. The mainstream media and the public were, rightly, outraged by Sarah’s murder, and it made front page news for weeks. But as I asked at the time, where was the outrage and grief for missing and murdered Women of Colour?
As Priti Patel continues to use the murders of women like Sabina Nessa to further her own publicity, we must make sure we’re not fooled by the Tories’ empty promises to eradicate deeply-rooted misogyny and racism in the country. Patel has stated that she is:
listening to women and girls up and down the country.
But at the same time, she is responsible for passing new laws that actually make women less safe. She is also giving some of the country’s most violent men – police officers – inexhaustible new powers through both the police bill and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act, which was passed in 2021.
It is essential that all of us shout out loud to get justice for women and girls like Shukri Abdi and Blessing Olusegun. It is vital that we fight impending new police powers which will no doubt affect Black and Brown communities the most. Enough of white silence: we all need to be allies.
Featured image via Pour Paris, resized to 770 x 403 px, licensed under Wikimedia Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
By Eliza Egret
This post was originally published on The Canary.
New research published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) suggests that policing during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic disproportionately targets People of Colour and undermines public safety.
The government expanded police powers to allow for “unprecedented restrictions on social gatherings” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.’ The report, titled A threat to public safety: policing, racism and the Covid-19 pandemic, was authored by academics from the University of Manchester’s Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). It argues that lockdown conditions, new police powers, and histories of institutionally racist policing have combined to threaten marginalised and vulnerable communities that already experience over-policing.
Moreover, it highlights that although England saw a drop in crime rates during the first lockdown, stop and search rates more than doubled in May 2020 compared to the year before. Also, between April and June 2020, the use of force increased by 12.5%. And police disproportionately used force against Black people.
The report draws on conversations with People of Colour living in England. Accounts reveal disproportionate and discriminatory policing over the course of the pandemic. Reflecting on the expansion of police powers and discriminatory policing during the pandemic, one respondent shared:
It’s almost giving like a golden ticket to kind of go out there in Black communities and just ridicule us. You know? To me, there’s like something that triggers the police with Black people […] they manhandle us, they verbally attack us, they treat us like animals
The report’s lead author Dr Scarlet Harris said:
The findings dismantle the myth that the police contribute to public safety. Instead, they demonstrate how policing such a ‘crisis’ has reproduced profound harms for those from racially minoritised groups and communities.
Participants sharing their experiences of policing during the pandemic highlighted instances of police failing to use personal protective equipment (PPE) or observe social distancing regulations. One woman who was heavily pregnant during an encounter with police told researchers that officers refused to wear masks when she asked them to.
The report comes in the wake of widespread protests against institutionally racist policing and proposals set out in the government’s draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. Reflecting on the policing of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and 2021 Kill the Bill protests, another respondent said:
it’s just completely illogical that for them, a public health response involves sending like 40 to 100 police officers into an area, kettling people, using PAVA spray and then putting loads of people in police stations and in custody where obviously the risk of transmission is going to be higher…So, it’s just so obvious to us, this has got nothing to do with public health. This is just about the police being able to shut down protests.
The report argues that such practices “completely undermine the public health approach to the pandemic”. During encounters with the public, the police significantly increased the risk of coronavirus transmission.
Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury, one of the report’s authors, said:
The evidence in this report really urges us to question the State’s reliance on the police to solve social and public health problems. Despite being central to the government’s handling of the pandemic, policing too often threatens rather than protects public safety, particularly for people of colour.
IRR director Liz Fekete added:
This research gives a voice to those who have had uncivil, discriminatory or brutal encounters with the police and points to the dangers that the public health model poses for “policing by consent”. The evidence of the over-policed reveals that those who argue that mistrust of the police is based on hearsay, myth-making and a victim mentality, are hopelessly out of touch.
The report’s authors conclude by expressing concern that the draconian measures ushered in at the beginning of the pandemic will remain in place, giving rise to “longer-standing forms of State control”. This is exemplified by the proposed draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. The bill would further expand police powers and threaten citizens’ civil liberties. The authors argue that our hope for dealing with present and future crises lies in alternative approaches which do not centre policing.
Featured image via Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona/Unsplash
This post was originally published on The Canary.
The Institute of Race Relations has released a new report on policing during the pandemic. And it’s raised a number of concerns regarding the police’s attitudes towards BAME communities.
The report was shared on Twitter by Labour MP Apsana Begum as well as police monitoring organisation Netpol:
An important report by @IRR_News says policing during the #covid pandemic has undermined public health measures, disproportionately targeting Black and Brown communities and reproduced profound harms for racially minoritised groups https://t.co/wVrLRW7n4l #PolicingTheCoronaState
— Netpol (@netpol) September 13, 2021
The report showed that policing of the pandemic affected “racially minoritised communities” the worst. This took the form of people from these communities being:
Respondents from across England shared with researchers their experiences of policing during the pandemic. Along with the impact on BAME communities, the researchers also found evidence of the police undermining public health. Police were found to be:
consistently failing to use PPE or observe social distancing regulations, with a pregnant woman describing an encounter where officers refused to wear masks when asked.
The authors argue that such actions from the police “highlight how – with regard to the transmission of Covid-19 – the police pose a health risk to members of the public”.
The report’s authors are Dr Scarlet Harris and Remi Joseph-Salisbury from the University of Manchester, Patrick Williams of Manchester Metropolitan University, and Lisa White of Liverpool John Moores University.
The Institute of Race Relations said in a press release:
The report argues that lockdown conditions, new police powers, and histories of institutionally racist policing have combined to pose a threat to already over-policed communities, and the most marginalised and vulnerable sections of society.
The research is published in the context of increased scrutiny around policing, particularly following significant mobilisations under the banner of Black Lives Matter and ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstrations against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill.
Harris, the report’s lead author, said:
The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a period of extraordinary police powers which arrived in a broader context of racist over-policing and police violence. This report draws on extensive conversations with people from racially minoritised groups and communities living across England over the course of the pandemic. The findings dismantle the myth that the police contribute to public safety. Instead, they demonstrate how policing such a ‘crisis’ has reproduced profound harms for those from racially minoritised groups and communities.
Featured image via Pixabay/ the_ahnafpiash
This post was originally published on The Canary.
Minnesota police shot and killed a Black man on Sunday, as the trial for the officer accused of killing George Floyd continues in Minneapolis.
Brooklyn Center police shot Daunte Wright, 20, after they pulled him over for a traffic violation, according to his mother, Katie Wright. A medical examiner said yesterday the gunshot was the cause of Wright’s death, and ruled it a homicide.
Katie Wright said her son called her after being told to get out of the car by police. She heard “scuffling” and then her son’s phone was hung up. She then spoke to Wright’s girlfriend, who told her he had been shot. Wright’s mother said:
I heard the police officer say ‘Daunte don’t run’. The other officer said ‘put the phone down’ and hung it up. A minute later I called and his girlfriend answered, which was the passenger in the car, and said that he’d been shot.
She put it on the driver’s side and my son was laying there, lifeless.
In a press release, Brooklyn Center police said they stopped Wright for a traffic violation, and then discovered he had an outstanding warrant.
They claimed Wright tried to get back into his car as they attempted to arrest him. One officer “discharged their firearm, striking the driver”. The car reportedly travelled several blocks before hitting another vehicle. Wright died at the scene.
Police chief Tim Gannon has since told reporters he believes officer Kim Potter meant to draw a taser, but used her gun instead. In her body camera footage, after calls to use a taser, an officer can be heard saying “holy shit, I just shot him”.
While the Hennepin County medical examiner ruled Wright’s death a homicide, they also stated the ruling did not represent “”a legal determination of culpability or intent.”
Protesters, including Wright’s family, gathered at the police department building on Sunday evening, calling for justice for Daunte Wright. Police dressed in riot gear used tear gas and flash bangs to disperse the hundreds of marchers. Protests continued on Monday, with police using stun grenades on the crowds.
Brooklyn Center is not far from Minneapolis, where the trial for the officer accused of killing George Floyd is ongoing.
Tensions are high in the state of Minnesota, as it waits to see whether Floyd’s family will get the justice they are hopeful for: a conviction for Derek Chauvin.
The Minneapolis police chief has already testified against Derek Chauvin, saying he does not believe his actions were within police policy.
In the US, around 1,000 police shootings a year result in fatality. According to data from a researcher at Bowling Green State University, only 139 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter after an on-duty shooting since 2005.
Of these, only 44 were convicted and 42 cases are still pending, highlighting the difficulty in holding police officers to account.
Philip Michael Stinson, who compliled the police conviction data, said he didn’t see any “systemic change” in how police are prosecuted. He added:
it’s got to be that more of the fatal shootings are unjustified.
Featured image via YouTube/Unicorn Riot
This post was originally published on The Canary.
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