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?

This thread is really weird. I can't believe the number of people finding creative ways to explain away racism rather than accept it happened.

She gave the impression she was driving. She was not driving. She was not stopped. The driver of the car was stopped

Surely, she was stopped as well, on account of being in the car that was stopped, being driven by the driver that was stopped. And I don't think that I could be arsed to type "the car that I'm a passenger in has been stopped by the police" in the heat of the moment, and "my driver has been stopped by the police" sounds like the words of a pompous twat.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if she'd got out of the car and walked away though, I grant you. Hopefully the next high-profile black person who's a passenger in a car that's stopped will give that a try and let us know how it works out.

@dadshere

The officer incorrectly inputted her reg plate into the computer and it was registered in Yorks, hence the stop. It isn't racism, it is called policing.

This makes it sound as though it's totally normal to be stopped while driving outside your home area, and someone that everyone expects to happen.

It really isn't!

”I am white and even I can see this for what it is. It is racism.’

Me too. In the past few months I’ve seen several people on here bend over backwards to excuse, minimise or flat out deny posters’ experiences of everyday racism. MN is hardly the Daily Mail comments section. It’s a lot worse on other sites. How can you tackle institutional racism when people refuse to recognise that it exists?

^ something that everyone expects to happen

So can people from London be expected to be stopped by the police in Cornwall? We don't live in that kind of country. Wr should not have to explain to the police why we are in an area

The only cars I have ever driven have been registered in various parts of North and West Yorkshire. Never been stopped in the 20yrs I've been driving despite travelling all over the UK, including London.

It is definitely not fucking normal to be stopped because you happen to be driving outside of your home region.

Was the driver black ?

Can's say I noticed.

So far we've had;

• the driver was white
• the car was from Yorkshire, so the stop was totally normal policing (!)
• it happens to white people too (but only when their social class is what makes the police profile them)
• there are Covid restrictions on West Yorks so they shouldn't be travelling (this is just a totally made up law)

• she was smiling and confident, gleeful that she'd been stopped (except she didn't force the police to stop them, did she? And her responding confidently doesn't mean it wasn't racial profiling )

Any more?

West Yorkshire has the highest serious crime rates in the UK. Police will be on the look out for organised crime and serious crime all the time. It's what they do and yes they stop cars they believe are from certain high crime areas

Have you got a link for the serious crime comparison, @Flaxmeadow?

The only stats I could find that give a breakdown by force were here www.ukcrimestats.com/Police_Forces/, and they don't catergorise by seriousness.

Interesting reading though. I noticed that West Midlands is worse than W Yorks for robbery, violence and weapons, despite W Yorks having a higher crime rate overall. They appear to have omitted my local force (Sussex) entirely though, so I'm not convinced it's a reliable source!

West Yorkshire is a hotspot for car crime tbf (no idea if it's the worst, but it is bad). But that doesn't translate into the residents being routinely stopped when they drive in other areas. I can testify to that.

I agree with you @areyoubeingserviced: the subtle, insidious racism is as bad as overt racism and far, far harder to counter.

If someone hurls racist insults, or attacks someone because of their race, it's cut and dried. But when they gently undermine someone at work, or assume that a black child is being naughty when they're just high-spirited, it's much harder to get them to see that their actions have their roots in their own (probably unconscious) racism.

41% say YABU... lol middle class DM-reading white MNers...

@allareyoubeingserviced I completely agree with you that institutional racism exists and is far more insidious than overt racism. I personally just don't feel that this was a case of it.

The significant institutional racism for me is for BAME police within the police. There have been lots of instances of this. Having your career stifled because of your race is far worse than something that looks like a genuine mistake. For me, I can genuinely believe there was an issue with their scanner/ inputting as part of a larger effort to reduce the horrific drug crime we have in London.

As an aside West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire are completely different places.

West Yorkshire car = connections to horrific drug crime

Really?? When can the white residents of West Yorkshire expect to start being stopped?

Have the police made a statement?
If they put in the wrong number plate surely it would be a miracle if the car that came up matched the make/model/colour of the car that was stopped?

Chomalungma I thought from the comments above about high crime areas that the police had said it was registered to West Yorks.... I've just checked and apparently the police said North Yorks. That makes the excuse even more implausible, and completely invalidates the excuses made above (which were ridiculous anyway, but more so if applied to North Yorks).

North Yorks is one of the lowest crime counties in the UK (I regularly leave my front door open without fear), and no area of North Yorks is subject to specific COVID restrictions of any kind.

I do think it would be very interesting to have dash cam footage from police cars as well as in car voice recordings prior to stop and search just to see and hear what's being said. I wonder what it would reveal

Instead of saying "white people do too" it would make more sense to say "white people who look obviously working class do too".

Classism is shitty in its own right

But it wasn't just about class in the examples I gave.

For those asking about West Yorkshire high crime google 'West Yorkshire has highest crime'. Plenty of news reports come up about the annual crime statistics (England and Wales).

There are some very serious problems in WY with terrorism, people trafficking and drugs, especially heroin, in the county and there are local public awareness campaigns about this. It is also an area heavily surveilled by traffic cameras, especially since 7/7 and also the murder of a police woman, as well as for organised crime

It was the car that was stopped, mistakenly, due to the number plates, cars have a history. I dont know what happened either way but there can be more reasons to pull a car from certain areas. People saying 'I'm from Yorkshire and don't get stopped', well your car is probably from a reputable dealer and not owned by various people with criminal records from certain areas

You do know the difference between North and West Yorkshire?

And you would also hope thr police can recognise makes of car?

ArriettyJones
and subsequently released an edited reverse image video which at first glance appears to support her assertion that she was the driver.

Oh that’s why I’m confused!

Why do people reverse images? Aesthetics?

Sigh, it isn’t reversed. All videos or images taken on selfie mode/the front camera are automatically mirrored by the phone.

It doesn’t matter why really, does it? She clearly wasn’t going to deliberately seek to mislead in such a ham fisted way (by flipping the image)!that was she? That would always be spotted quickly. She’s too intelligent for that, no matter what the story is.

So whatever the story behind that, it was clearly incidental, but it did explain why the image i had seen didn’t fit with comments I was reading. Which was a relief.

Go and sigh melodramatically at someone else.

Oh so now we’re inventing completely fictitious hypotheticals involving MPs having cars that were purchased from “dodgy dealers”, owned by criminals, that have been linked to crime (lol what as a bank robbery getaway car)?

Just because she’s black, her friends must be criminals and her car/friend’s car from a dodgy dealer?

Wtf does “from a certain area” mean anyway, and how on earth do you know that on sight?

Still doesn’t explain why they ran her number plates or pulled her over in the first place. You think London police have memorised every single car in the UK that’s “been used in crimes” and are capable of recognising all those cars on sight?

She wasn’t in the fucking Batmobile.

I've just checked and apparently the police said North Yorks. That makes the excuse even more implausible, and completely invalidates the excuses made above (which were ridiculous anyway, but more so if applied to North Yorks).

Just seen this, but NY is close to WY and there is a big county lines problem as well.

What if a car number plate was thought to be involved in people smuggling/drug offences involving young people. Would you not want it to be stopped?