Institutional Racism in our policing - Dawn Butler MP

[AuntyPasta]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/09/labour-mp-dawn-butler-stopped-by-police-in-london

The police stopped the car being driven by her friend (she was a passenger.) Unlike the elite athletes stopped with their 3 month old baby in the car www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jul/06/why-did-police-stop-and-search-bianca-williams-and-ricardo-dos-santos she’s had an apology.

AIBU to think that if she wasn’t an MP the police would be sticking by their ‘reasonable suspicion’? Is that what it takes to be dealt with fairly by the police?

I don’t think people living in Hackney want more racial profiling.

Flaxmeadow, but your first instinct was to disbelieve the account of the black woman who was present at this incident

I haven't disbelieved her. I have said 3 times now that I dont know exactly what happened. Though I do think her tweet, 24 hours ago, that she was driving through Hackney was misleading but then she might have reasons for that. Who knows what she meant

@Flaxmeadow

Flaxmeadow, but your first instinct was to disbelieve the account of the black woman who was present at this incident

I haven't disbelieved her. I have said 3 times now that I dont know exactly what happened. Though I do think her tweet, 24 hours ago, that she was driving through Hackney was misleading but then she might have reasons for that. Who knows what she meant

What does any of that even matter? It's semantic nonsense as she clearly meant "travelling in a car" and whether she or her also black friend were driving, it's still 2 black people stopped for a load of bullshit about "Yorkshire".

Wtf shouldn't a black person travel from Yorkshire to London, anyway? Shall we start requiring black people to carry travel papers when out of area? Genius! Problem solved! Come to think, I recall requiring black people to show travel papers was done once before to control protect the black population, now where was that done, thinking thinking...

Where do you live LakieLady ? Sounds idyllic.

@Flaxmeadow, these were random searches, which was what the old "sus" law was all about, so a "description" doesn't come into it.

The laughable thing is I used to smoke a lot of weed in my mis-spent youth and often had cocaine, too, so they could have arrested me several times over if only they hadn't had a stereotypical idea of a drug user. But no, they preferred to stop and search young black males and let white, professional middle-class 20 and 30-somethings get on with it. Even when a friend was stopped for drinking and driving with 3 of us and loads of hash in the car, they didn't bother searching the car.

That's the other side of racial profiling - white people get away with stuff that they really shouldn't.

That's the other side of racial profiling - white people get away with stuff that they really shouldn't.

It's just shit policing all around. And inefficient. If you wanted to make the police more efficient it would probably be the best place to start.

(How much of the Mets resources dealing with this story are now not going into policing London ?)

Personally I wouldn't give the police a penny more until they had demonstrably got their own house in order.

Imagine if it was spent on fighting class issues

That's the old Militant Tendency.SWP/Trots generally position, @Flaxmeadow: don't worry about black rights or women's rights or any other group's rights, because it'll all be fine once we've won the class war.

I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now.

If you’re black then you can’t educate or earn yourself out of prejudice

You only have to look at the abuse that Diane Abbott enudures to see that. Good Oxford degree, well paid job, but she still she gets shit from racist fuckwits.

IWtf shouldn't a black person travel from Yorkshire to London, anyway? Shall we start requiring black people to carry travel papers when out of area? Genius! Problem solved! Come to think, I recall requiring black people to show travel papers was done once before to control protect the black population, now where was that done, thinking thinking...*

Lol, I was thinking earlier on that some people would be happy if we introduced pass laws.

@Advancesingle - a small town in Sussex, in the national park.

We've had 3 murders here in less than 30 years though, and an attemptred murder, which I think is a lot for a town that only had 12k people in it at the start of that period (16k-20k now).

We think crime up here is so low because parking's a nightmare, so there's nowhere to put a getaway car, the streets are narrow and there are only 2 roads that lead you back into town, so it would be very easy to catch someone. And we're all really nosy, but not in a meddling way, iykwim.

We think crime up here is so low because parking's a nightmare

😂😂😂😂

This is such a British reason for not doing crime 👏👏👏

Criminal 1: Let’s do over the bank in Sussington.
Criminal 2:,Are you MAD? There’s no on street parking and the Co op car park is £4.70 for 2 hours!
Criminal 1: £4.70?! They’re having a laugh!

blurpityblurp Why do you keep banging on about....

Because posters were asking me about it? AKA as a conversation

I want more cars stopped and more searches

Why stop there?
Why not have the police stop everyone in your area, search them, ask them who they are, ask them to show some ID etc?

Do you want to live in that kind of society?

Maybe you do...just to be safe....

That's the old Militant Tendency.SWP/Trots generally position, @Flaxmeadow: don't worry about black rights or women's rights or any other group's rights, because it'll all be fine once we've won the class war.

I know seeing things from a class perspective is massively unfashionable at the moment, especially on this forum where liberal progressive middle class self prescribed 'guilt' or 'privilege' is always simmering under the surface, often redirected onto the 'chav brexit voting gammon thicko illiterate red wall' working class, but class perspective does not exclude black people or women and it never did.

Interesting how some people are trying to suggest that white people are searched as much as non-white people.

Out of interest, could some white posters on here state how many times the police have stopped them in their car. Can they also state how often they have been subjected to stop and search while out in public.

I’m a brown male
I have been stopped in my car 15/20 times in five years of car ownership. Some where I live, some in Manchester, one in Coleford, one in Harrogate and two in the car park of my own building.

I have been stopped and searched countless times, I’m yet to experience a stop and search thats actually legal. When I have been stopped the white people with me have never been questioned or searched, if I have been with other brown people they have also been illegally searched.

I have been stopped and searched countless times, I’m yet to experience a stop and search thats actually legal. When I have been stopped the white people with me have never been questioned or searched, if I have been with other brown people they have also been illegally searched.

what does the docket they give you say at the time ?

Why stop there?
Why not have the police stop everyone in your area, search them, ask them who they are, ask them to show some ID etc?

Do you want to live in that kind of society

Maybe you do...just to be safe...

In the area I live, the police, partly for political reasons, didn't keep young women safe from organised crime for decades. It was a national scandal and still is. So yes I'd like more stop and search, even now. But that's my area, not London, and so sorry for going off topic.

@DGRossetti

I have been stopped and searched countless times, I’m yet to experience a stop and search thats actually legal. When I have been stopped the white people with me have never been questioned or searched, if I have been with other brown people they have also been illegally searched.

what does the docket they give you say at the time ?

They rarely give you the search record there and then anymore, instead you have to go to the station and request a copy. On two occasions the officers have refused to state their name, why they are attempting to search me and what they expect to find. On three occasions they have attempted to illegally remove more than the prescribed clothing in public (coat and gloves). My favourite reason for being stopped was because I was wearing glasses (which they couldn’t see from behind), yet didn’t search my then partner (white) who was also wearing glasses. No one who has ever searched me has actually had reasonable grounds to search me.

I had two searches on foot in Manchester last year, on both occasions when I finally gained a copy of the search the officers had lied when they gave me their name.

In the area I live, the police, partly for political reasons, didn't keep young women safe from organised crime for decades. It was a national scandal and still is. So yes I'd like more stop and search, even now. But that's my area, not London, and so sorry for going off topic

Would you really like to live in a society where everyone is stopped and searched by the police, just in case?

Maybe one where people's faces are scanned continuously and checked against a database?

Then people can be detained, asked to move on and made to justify their presence - or denied something?

I wouldn't want to live in a society like that. I am sure you can see the potential issues that might come from that.

There are societies like that. There have been societies like that in the past. And people who the authorities didn't like got detained.

@SimonJT

@SimonJT

This is very much the experience of the young black boys who are part of my school community. It’s nigh on impossible for them to have any trust in authority when this is part of their lives.

I’ve never been stopped in the car, I’ve never been searched. When I was a teenager, driving (as a passenger to avoid any confusion) around in cars with friends, none of them were ever stopped or searched. The cars ranged from old bangers to new, flashy doof-doof-doof mobiles. Wandering out to the petrol station for cigarettes in the early hours en masse we were never stopped. Even when my friend was 18 and driving a very pricey and uncommon car around (their dad’s) for about 6 months, including to and from clubs in town in the early hours, they were never stopped. I’ve lived in a Greater London, Surrey and the North West.

chomalungma

This is my original comment in full. Not sure why it is so controversial or why this equates to me wanting an Orwellian police state.

I'm working class, I live in a high crime area. I want more active policing not less. I want more cars stopped and more searches. As a woman, especially on the streets I have to walk around on a daily basis

[quote DGRossetti]@SimonJT

[/quote]
They were pretty stylish glasses to be fair!

There are some good spoof videos around about things like stop and search etc. The ones about being ‘randomly’ selected at airports are my favourite as they’re so accurate.

Sorry to read about your experiences with the police SimonJT.