to think there's something wrong with this photo?

[mirrormirror99]

Three black men with their backs against a wall and officers stood in front of them, then a white woman with almost the opposite?

Or AIBU?

I’ve no idea whether it’s ‘real’ or posed
Really?

My DS is a young white man, he was stopped and searched twice when it was allowed before. He wasn’t in a group, just going along minding his own business. Stop making it about race. Knife crime is through the roof so I don’t care if people get offended if it saves lives.

Yup, I'm not the most alert to subtexts and stuff, but when i clicked on the bbc news site first thing and saw the photo, i thought, really?!

That photograph is a stock image and looks like it was posed with models. It comes from Getty, a photo library which is used by most newspapers and mags in the UK. The photographs have been cleared for usage with certain rights including model releases and help to prevent newspapers being sued for libel.

A quick image search on Google reveals that it has been used before in the Guardian and Telegraph.

Having said that, this picture could easily be used in the wrong context.

@Asta19 exactly!! Saving lives trumps people being "offended" any day!

Saving lives trumps people being "offended" any day!

Err.. no it doesn't. The image needs to be used with discretion.

I think the photo would be ok
if it was used in an article that's just about which ethnic groups get searched by the Police but as the article is mainly about the general Subject of searching it's inappropriate.

I'd be ok with more lenient stop and search powers. Iyswim

Surely you can work out that crimes are committed by people of all races?

It’s not really “people”. Gang violence, stabbing, nicking things from white vans, vehicle thief, rape, murder. That would be the massively over represented by the males of the population. Not sure why being black is more of an issue than being male.

That is a posed photo and police haven't worn those helmets for years have they?

That is a posed photo

Yes. It was part of a campaign about racial inequality and has been taken out of context in the pic shown above.

police haven't worn those helmets for years have they?

I'm pretty sure the Met wear them daily.

Getting the police back out on foot patrol would be a start but they have been decimated. Post-Manchester a lot of forces had to spend money on counter terrorism initiatives eg firearms officers. Policing is political and the money will go to the high profile units and until Hugo from Sevenoaks starts being murdered that’s how it will stay.

We’ve gone backwards-ten years ago we had “safer neighbourhoods” in the Met but most of this has gone. Police also spend most of their time now dealing with non crime matters with mental health particularly being a huge drain

Care in the community would be a priority for me, before policing.

@ CheekyChappy, Colour and race is irrelevant but if they tend to be more black than white what's the issue? Being overly PC is what's letting these youths of all races run around murdering each other.

BTW, I have reported your posts. You really need to look at what you wrote as you come over as a racist bigot.

The thing is NewYear not stating the obvious helps no one. You get to look virtuous by taking offence but the problem continues.
It looks like the victims and perpetrators ref knife crime are disproportionately young black working class males. Not solely but out of proportion to the population. We can pretend this isn’t the case but that’s what it looks like. I’d be glad to be wrong and be shown that young black working class males aren’t being killed disproportionately or suffering poorer outcomes re prison etc. I would hazard a guess though that social class plays a huge role in all of this - possibly broken families too? How is a single mum meant to deal with a wayward teenage boy if there’s no father figure and she’s isolated? A lot of teenage boys are bigger than me at 14.
“Why have they got nothing to lose”-is what I’d be asking.

Eloquently put Siameasy.
especially this: “Why have they got nothing to lose”-is what I’d be asking.

The problem is that the current knife and killing epidemic is almost all gang related, and almost all amongst black and asian males.

Not ok given that a black man is more likley to be stopped and searched than a white man, due to ingrained racist ideas

Black men are statistically far more likely to be involved in knife crime, so it makes sense that they are searched more often

Sorry, hadn’t finished - and the problem is, there is only outcry when it’s the young white girls getting stabbed. Race is definitely an issue here.

Google searched the image and noted the same @newyear

Or should police stop random white women in equal numbers to search them for knives, in order to facilitate the delusion that it’s all a racist conspiracy and there are no demographic links to these sorts of crimes?

Well I'm no detective, but I'm not sure what they are hoping to find on the pregnant woman. A bottle of Gaviscon?

Ots not a bloody advert for stop amd search! Its a political picture made upfor affect. People are so thick

As Siameasy said, It looks like the victims and perpetrators ref knife crime are disproportionately young black working class males. Not solely but out of proportion to the population.

So what should the police do? Start stopping and searching middle aged woman to balance things up?

I think it's a brilliant picture. Shows exactly what young black men have to endure almost daily. Whilst the nice young white woman doesn't suffer the same shit. The photo does its job.

The photo is not staged, I'm fairly certain of that.
My own experience tends to say that the police officers decided to search the three men and whilst doing so a woman has approached asking for assistance. Which is being provided. There is no need for officers to request a female officer to search a female.
It is a snapshot in time.