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?

@Flaxmeadow

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

Who do you want searched? Do you think people should be searched without just cause? Do you think any car should be searched?

Should the police need a good reason to search someone?

It’s horrendous that the police still aren’t held accountable for their actions, even in an age of body cams and mobile phones.

@AuntyPasta

It’s horrendous that the police still aren’t held accountable for their actions, even in an age of body cams and mobile phones.

When the Prime Minister of a country can tell a room full of press "there are no cameras here" and not be laughed out of his job, then not much below is going to change.

bear in mind elsewhere on this site - and in the country at large, there are calls for police officers to be renamed "heroes" and their lives to be treated as more valuable than yours, mine, or our childrens.

Not all heroes wear capes, and not all criminals wear stripey tops.

Who do you want searched?

Bearing in mind I can only speak for my own area. Criminal gangs mostly I suppose. We have a very high incidence of people trafficking and heroin distribution here

Do you think people should be searched without just cause?

No

Do you think any car should be searched?

Under certain circumstances yes, riots for example or a search for vulnerable missing people, but in general no because it would be a waste of police time

Should the police need a good reason to search someone?

Yes, they should be acting on information, either their own or from the people in the neighbourhood.

...I'd also add terrorism to the above, for searching in exceptional circumstances

We have a very high incidence of people trafficking and heroin distribution here

How is stop and search going to affect people trafficking ? You do know they don't hide people in their pockets, don't you ?

@Flaxmeadow

What you've said already happens.

You said yourself you want more cars searched - and the ANPR database etc is good to provide information.

Personally, I don't have an issue with people being stopped and searched IF there is strong evidence for searching them - and I do think that 'being known to the police' is a good enough reason. I can think of people near where I live who would fit that category.

I do think there is a problem with not having just cause - and this case is a massive fuck up.

Rossetti
How is stop and search going to affect people trafficking ? You do know they don't hide people in their pockets, don't you?

They are hidden in vehicles, mostly for the purposes of forced prostitution in other towns and cities, including London. Sometimes the victims are heavily drugged. This is why I mentioned it earlier in the thread when someone asked why would a car be stopped from the north. I'm not saying just any car from the north should be stopped, but only if it shows up as suspicious in another high crime area. I was asked why a car might be stopped because of different areas, it was just one reason.

chomalungma

What you've said already happens

But not enough, the police are still being hampered by local politics IMO.

But, again, that's this area, not London, so cant speak for the capital

This is why I mentioned it earlier in the thread when someone asked why would a car be stopped from the north. I'm not saying just any car from the north should be stopped, but only if it shows up as suspicious in another high crime area

But you will still admit that in this case, the police majorly fucked up.

Police computer failure - maybe?
Police failure to double check the computer readout vs what they could see with their own eyes.

But you will still admit that in this case, the police majorly fucked up.

Police computer failure - maybe?
Police failure to double check the computer readout vs what they could see with their own eyes.

I suppose we will have to wait and see, but I wouldnt describe this as a 'major fuck up' no.

Jean Charles de Menezes was major, but not this

Jean Charles de Menezes was major, but not this

A fuck up then?

Not by any stretch of the imagination the police's finest hour, I daresay there are lessons to be learnt here. Though from what I can tell:

(1) This was the first time it'd ever happened to her, a 50 yr old woman who's lived in London her entire life? She'd surely have mentioned it if not. Doesn't obviously smack of a reign of terror;

(2) In her recording the police are unfailiningly polite and apologetic, even as she, another public servant albeit one paid roughly three times their salary, smirks & sneers from the [passenger seat of someone else's] expensive car.

(3) The hard-hittingness of her story is hardly improved by the story of yet another black teenager being knifed to death that day. I'd be interested to know what a grieving London mother thinks of stop and search. It shouldn't be that hard to find someone to speak up, after all there's a new one created every couple of days or so.

In her recording the police are unfailiningly polite and apologetic, even as she, another public servant albeit one paid roughly three times their salary, smirks & sneers from the [passenger seat of someone else's] expensive car

Speaks volumes about you....

A fuck up then?

I'm not sure. I'm still trying work out what the officer did wrong or why he was on the passenger side speaking to DB anyway, did she call the officer to her side after it had all been dealt with.

I'm also slightly distracted by the officers resemblance to a young Tim Roth, an actor who is known for playing criminal parts

From the Guardian

‘Butler said she had been happy with the attitude of the officer who dealt with the registration, and would not have complained publicly were it not for the approach of two other police involved.

One of them asked Butler where she lived and was going, and said the pair had been stopped because “there’s people who have been coming into the area”, without explaining what this meant, the MP said.

Another officer, a woman, had “inflamed the situation” by saying tinted rear windows on the car could be illegal, she added. The law about tinting on windows applies only to the windscreen and front windows.

“I had no intention of speaking about this until the officers became very obnoxious,” said Butler, who made a video recording of the incident on her phone. “I just felt that if I don’t use my platform to talk about this, I’m doing a disservice to everyone who gets wrongly stopped and searched, and all the black people who are constantly unjustly profiled.”

And what did she get for speaking out? A bunch of racist trolls who accuse her of lying, claim the black driver is white and launch a call to sack her. That’s racism in action.

Is footage only being shared selectively, then? Where is the full video?

It's being reported that some members of the police would like the video footage from the police to be released .

The Police Federation (police unions are banned? But kind of a union), is asking for the full police body cam footage to be released

If the police officers involved want to put forward an alternative version of events, is there anything stopping them? Can’t they just say why the want the bodycam footage released?

It feels as though the SM aspect of this isn’t helping anything at all.

I don't see why MPs should be exempt from being stopped.
Crime is up in London, more drug dealing, 7 stabbing deaths this year (could be more) but police can't stop and search cars? Is that what people want. I'm sure with the abuse they get they'd be more than happy to stop doing it. Unfortunately it is being used to stop crime.

I don't see why MPs should be exempt from being stopped
No one should be exempt from being stopped.
But police need a valid reason to stop someone.

They did not have a valid reason in this case. As this thread, based upon what has been said by the police, has shown.

I completely sympathise with her. I am white and live South of the river in London and have never been stopped but my BAME friends are frequently approached by the Police.

Interestingly, I am also a Chair of Governors for a school in Tower Hamlets, we have a problem with drug dealing outside the school in the early evening but have little or no response from the Police ... until there was a major drug deal c. Quarter of a million, picked up by our CCTV, yet each week we compile an edit for our Community Policeman and nothing happens but maybe it's because the dealers are white?

An article in the Sun on stabbings in 2019 in London.

'About 10 people a day are arrested for carrying knives in London'

Yes, let's just let them get on with it. Who cares if bad boys are killing bad boys!

It's drugs which are the problem, for some reason no one wants to increase sentences etc. The same the world over.

MistressMounthaven

I don’t see the relevance of your post?

@chomalungma
'But police need a valid reason to stop someone.'

Ahh, now what do you suggest that should be. They are waving a carving knife out of the window? They are waving a handgun about?
Speeding (tricky in central London)?