To think it's outrageous that Kemi Badenoch did not know the police were armed?

[PerditaProvokesEnmity]

Tory MP. She's just been pontificating on Today. Asked about the mother of the twelve year old boy arrested in his own home with a toy gun she accused her of inflaming the rhetoric around race. Interviewer pointed out the police were armed. She did not know this.

People on Mars know armed police stormed the house. She's an utter disgrace.

It WAS a toy gun

Armed police should have turned up, but they SHOULDNT have pointed lasers and arrested a 12yr old boy who answered the door in his shorts.

I agree with @PerditaProvokesEnmity. Let's run this social experiment.

And I agree that the tories have token brown people who spout shit, know and do nothing for the BAME agenda.

A BB gun is absolutely not considered a toy.

I think the police would have attended armed and mob handed whatever the report of a gun. But that they were more likely to be called if the person holding it was perceived as a male or as a boy. I seem to remember reading something about the tendency of white people to overestimate the ages of black boys. Which could be relevant.

@EnoughAlready2020

It WAS a toy gun

Armed police should have turned up, but they SHOULDNT have pointed lasers and arrested a 12yr old boy who answered the door in his shorts.

I agree with @PerditaProvokesEnmity. Let's run this social experiment.

And I agree that the tories have token brown people who spout shit, know and do nothing for the BAME agenda.

While it was legal, it was not a toy.

The language used is trying to paint the picture of a wee lad playing cowboys and going "Pow"

The gun looks real to me and at that time of night I'd love to know what he was "playing"

The gun looks real to me and at that time of night I'd love to know what he was "playing

Through a window, I should imagine many guns - ranging from toy guns through to BB guns look real enough.

I wonder how many 12 year old males playing with such guns get reported to the police?

It WAS a toy gun BB or Airsoft, it was not a toy. Legal to buy for an under 198 year old but come with reostrictins - such as supervised use. And as the police confimred it was an airsoft it would have been less lethal but would have looked almost identical to the real thing. The dual colouring is paidlip service, they are often a very dark blue on the barrel/slide.

Armed police should have turned up, but they SHOULDNT have pointed lasers erm, that's how they aim!

and arrested a 12yr old boy who answered the door in his shorts at that time of the morning and what else were they supposed to do? They had reports of an armed male.

@chomalungma's question is the only one relvant to race. How many white boys would have been reported if see from the street?

After that the police response is the same, no matter the age, sex or race of the suspect.

After that the police response is the same, no matter the age, sex or race of the suspect

I think the body cam footage will be interesting.

The response may be the same - but I wonder if the response after they find out it's a BB gun would be different, depending on the people involved.

e.g. Would there be a difference in the way the police spoke to someone in a middle class village vs someone in a poor, deprived neighbourhood full of gangs etc.

Especially once the police realised that there was no danger to themselves. How is such a situation deescalated - and how do the individuals who were targeted at gunpoint react?

How many white boys would have been reported if see from the street?
I think that is is a very racially emotive way to describe it and is stirring up a racial tensions. Its more to do with location of house, how much crime & gangs in the area. What experience the person reporting it had with guns before. Maybe also if they were in a family with kids who also bought their children replica guns.

I don't know anything about what's happened, but to have a minister not know basic facts about something they're talking about is not forgiveable.

It's possible to 100% defend police actions whilst also understanding that KBs ignorance is a problem.

I wonder if KB would be under such scrutiny if she were white?

Sounds like the MP and mum are both daft.

I wonder if KB would be under such scrutiny if she were white?

I guess you're joking, since no one could possibly have missed the particular significance and purpose (though Tory purpose is misaligned with national purpose) of her appointment.

Setting that aside, it's a staggeringly cruel question - but perhaps, unlike me and millions of others - you've missed the past fifty years (I've lived through them) of intolerable prejudice, scrutiny and mistreatment meted out to any non-white person who dared to rise above gutter sweeping in their profession.

People ask that she performs at least competently because they know just how many careers have been destroyed through the wrongs she has ostensibly been appointed to examine and rectify. (Though we know BJ and co don't actually give a damn ...)

@bibbitybobbitycats

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing, tbh. When she was asked whether this would have happened if the boy had been white, she said something along the lines of "maybe it has, but it just hasn't been reported."

Surely everyone on here is old enough to remember Harry Stanley and his chair leg?

Armed police don't give two shits what colour you are if they think you're a risk to themselves or others you get shot.

But then again they're usually going off some curtain twitches who is 100% sure it's a gun etc so often doomed before they start

@PerditaProvokesEnmity

Tell you what, let's carry out a reconstruction experiment!

One white twelve year old boy, one black. Let's send out the police and see how they behave in each case.

And let's wait to hear a government minister appear on the radio to shame the mothers involved.

Fun for all the family ...

Based on studies in the USA the result of that would surprise you.

Officers fired faster and with less hesitation when the person they were shooting was white.

"We found that, despite clear evidence of implicit bias against Black suspects, officers were slower to shoot armed Black suspects than armed White suspects, and they were less likely to shoot unarmed Black suspects than unarmed White suspects. "

Surely everyone on here is old enough to remember Harry Stanley and his chair leg?

I'm old enough to remember Stephen Waldorf.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Stephen_Waldorf

Stephen Waldorf was a 26-year-old film editor who was shot and severely injured by Metropolitan Police officers in London, England, on 14 January 1983, when he was misidentified as escaped prisoner David Martin.

(contd).

But even so, it's hard to see what the police did wrong here ....

Police statement

news.met.police.uk/news/statement-from-commander-kyle-gordon-re-arrest-in-camden-407881

"In order to ensure the safety of the public the Met’s Armed Response Vehicles attended the address to make enquiries."

That's one way of putting it - going into a house with armed officers aiming weapons at each household member and arresting a 12 year old child.