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?

Fuck it

The police have acknowledged they got it wrong

Boris has confirmed as much

The Daily Fucking Mail recognised as much
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8611267/Im-black-friends-black-hes-got-fairly-decent-car-Dawn-Butler-Met-Police-car-stop.html

Yes posters here persist in defending what even the police aren’t defending

It can’t be that widespread, though. Otherwise any one who relocated within the U.K. and took a car with them would be stopped daily.

I was stopped many years ago after moving to Brum, because the car was still registered at my parents house in London.

And a policeman friend of my DFs made a point of buying a car in Cornwall where he retired to, as he knew the Cornish police liked pulling Londoners for a laugh. Admittedly this was years ago, but I can easily believe it's still a thing. Bearing in mind it becomes second nature to policeman to know number plate codes.

You must admit it looks probable that racial profiling played a part

No I don't admit that.

A young male, apparent ethnicity unknown ATM, had his car pulled over by the police, in an urban high crime area. There could be any number of explanations for it. Young men, both black and white, get pulled all the time in these areas. Young men get pulled over for driving around in expensive cars all the time.

Because a police officer made the decision to run a manual check on a car licence plate based purely on the fact that something about two black people driving an expensive car looked dodgy

But we do not know that the officer based it 'purely' on the fact that it was 'two black people'

Everyone is giving hypotheticals in this thread, not just me. But none of us know the full details yet

The gymnastics going on in this thread to justify why Dawn Butler and her friend being stopped does not surprise me

The sheer amount of intellectual energy being spent on defending the indefensible is breathtaking. Imagine if all that effort could be spent on fighting racism, misogyny and homophobia, the world be a much nicer place.

@Flaxmeadow

You must admit it looks probable that racial profiling played a part

No I don't admit that.

A young male, apparent ethnicity unknown ATM, had his car pulled over by the police, in an urban high crime area. There could be any number of explanations for it. Young men, both black and white, get pulled all the time in these areas. Young men get pulled over for driving around in expensive cars all the time.

Because a police officer made the decision to run a manual check on a car licence plate based purely on the fact that something about two black people driving an expensive car looked dodgy

But we do not know that the officer based it 'purely' on the fact that it was 'two black people'

Everyone is giving hypotheticals in this thread, not just me. But none of us know the full details yet

Forget “purely”. Let’s assume there’s some mixed motivations, or subconscious motivations, or both.

Do you accept that race probably figured - to whatever degree- in the police decision making?

The crime hotspot of North Yorkshire

Lol, the nearest N Yorks has been to a crime hotspot was probably when they filmed "Heartbeat" there. I can see it now: the mean streets of Harrogate, the gang wars of Grassington, the seaside resort of Scarfaceborough...

@Flaxmeadow

You must admit it looks probable that racial profiling played a part

No I don't admit that.

A young male, apparent ethnicity unknown ATM, had his car pulled over by the police, in an urban high crime area. There could be any number of explanations for it. Young men, both black and white, get pulled all the time in these areas. Young men get pulled over for driving around in expensive cars all the time.

Because a police officer made the decision to run a manual check on a car licence plate based purely on the fact that something about two black people driving an expensive car looked dodgy

But we do not know that the officer based it 'purely' on the fact that it was 'two black people'

Everyone is giving hypotheticals in this thread, not just me. But none of us know the full details yet

So you're assuming that Dawn Butler was lying when she said her friend is black? Her account can't be trusted?

@DGRossetti

It can’t be that widespread, though. Otherwise any one who relocated within the U.K. and took a car with them would be stopped daily.

I was stopped many years ago after moving to Brum, because the car was still registered at my parents house in London.

And a policeman friend of my DFs made a point of buying a car in Cornwall where he retired to, as he knew the Cornish police liked pulling Londoners for a laugh. Admittedly this was years ago, but I can easily believe it's still a thing. Bearing in mind it becomes second nature to policeman to know number plate codes.

I can believe that about Cornwall, and some areas of Wales too(!). But London is a bit different to Cornwall though... I'm not aware of any resentment of incomers from rural areas in London!

Millions of visitors from outside London drive there every year, and plenty of Londoners (hundreds of thousands) will be driving second-hand cars with non-London licence plate codes*. The number of people/cars this will apply to will be enormous.

As I said upthread, I and DH have driven into London many, many times in various second-hand cars that were registered elsewhere. Never been stopped.

(* The larger car dealers routinely ship second hand cars around the country to areas with higher demand, so lots and lots of people are driving around in cars that are registered to their home address but which have a licence plate code for elsewhere in the country. New cars are an exception, but the majority of people are not driving around in brand new cars.)

Do you accept that race probably figured - to whatever degree- in the police decision making?

Race plays a part in policing in that many BAME people live in high crime urban areas. That is not saying that BAMEs are more likely to commit crime just because they're BAME, but that they are more likely to be stopped, compared to national statistics, by living in an area where more crime is committed. If an area is 70% BAME and has high crime then what are the police supposed to do? Only stop a certain percent BAME that fits a national average and stop all white people in the area to fit that average too

Maybe the answer is to recruit more BAME officers into these areas.

The response “but I’m white and I’ve been stopped” is such bullshit. That’s not how institutional racism works.

Look at these figures, particularly the ones relating to being stopped and the use of force by the police.

It’s irrelevant if white people also get stopped. The point is that black people are overwhelmingly more likely to be.

From the BBC article:

"Ms Butler said the BMW that was stopped on Sunday was being driven by a male friend, who is also black, and it was pulled over by two police cars....
..."I don't know what raised their suspicion. All I know is I'm black, my friend was black and he has a fairly decent car.""

According to Flaxmeadow:

"A young male, apparent ethnicity unknown ATM..."

So you have invented that he was young, and have immediately dismissed / disbelieved Dawn Butler's statement that he was black. That tells us all we need to know about you.

@Flaxmeadow

Do you accept that race probably figured - to whatever degree- in the police decision making?

Race plays a part in policing in that many BAME people live in high crime urban areas. That is not saying that BAMEs are more likely to commit crime just because they're BAME, but that they are more likely to be stopped, compared to national statistics, by living in an area where more crime is committed. If an area is 70% BAME and has high crime then what are the police supposed to do? Only stop a certain percent BAME that fits a national average and stop all white people in the area to fit that average too

Maybe the answer is to recruit more BAME officers into these areas.

The thing is, there are two Hackneys, completely different and existing in the same space. One is gentrified and monied and largely white and the other is working class, and mainly BAME. So I think you’re right when you say “That is not saying that BAMEs are more likely to commit crime just because they're BAME, but that they are more likely to be stopped, compared to national statistics” but that is the problem isn’t it?

A white person from - or driving through - X postcode is viewed as belonging to a different area entirely than a BAME person from or driving through the same postcode.

I’m not an absolutist about it. I know other factors also come into play, but that doesn’t dilute the racism, does it?

It can’t be that widespread, though. Otherwise any one who relocated within the U.K. and took a car with them would be stopped daily

Quite.

In 45 years of driving I have only been stopped twice, both times were when they were stopping every car leaving an event notorious for drunkeness and bad behaviour.

I was never asked to step out of the car or breathalysed, despite owning up to having had 2 glasses of wine in the preceding 6 hours. And I had a sword and a replica pistol on the back seat, but they didn't give a shit about that because I was dressed as a pirate.

And I had a sword and a replica pistol on the back seat, but they didn't give a shit about that because I was dressed as a pirate

Don’t give people ideas.

Young men, both black and white, get pulled all the time in these areas.

But disproportionately black men.

But we do not know that the officer based it 'purely' on the fact that it was 'two black people'

The police have been unable to offer any other explanation. No one has been able to offer any reasonable explanation other than racial profiling.

@LakieLady

The crime hotspot of North Yorkshire

Lol, the nearest N Yorks has been to a crime hotspot was probably when they filmed "Heartbeat" there. I can see it now: the mean streets of Harrogate, the gang wars of Grassington, the seaside resort of Scarfaceborough...

I wouldn't joke.... someone stole some coping stones from one of the dry stone walls in my village last year!

I can believe that about Cornwall, and some areas of Wales too(!). But London is a bit different to Cornwall though... I'm not aware of any resentment of incomers from rural areas in London!

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that was the reason in this instance. But it's certainly something which does happen (for the posters that insist it doesn't).

Of course a policeman running a check over the radio, or via a terminal is going to leave an audit trail. A policeman stopping a car on sight from the number plate isn't.

She wasn't even driving

She didn’t say she was.

her white Male friend was!
He’s black.

Seen the video?

Yes.

There's assertions that she flipped it to make it look like she was driving when she wasn't

Bollocks. The camera is in selfy mode, so everything is mirrored.

but that is the problem isn’t it?

But if statistics are being compared to national statistics then it is

More BAME people live in high crime densely populated urban areas where there is more policing. Do we agree? More people get stopped in high crime areas, whether they are black or white, and this will affect national statistics. The police are not as active in middle class suburban areas or the countryside, because there isn't as much crime. I think this is more about class than race. More about deprived areas, with high crime rates. Also about men, of a certain age, in expensive cars in those areas too. That was always the case, as I pointed out earlier in the way my (white) ex, a motor mechanic, was always stopped when he was in a flash car

Dawn said on twitter that she had been stopped by the police whilst driving in Hackney.

Right so apparently he's black but very pale skinned, clearly, and even close up - in her edited video - his skin passes as white. So they didn't see two obviously black occupants of a vehicle and stop them "because they were black" did they? They've given their reasons and those reasons make perfect sense. It's bullshit.

...another class thing is, the police are more middle class nowadays. They are less likely to live, as they once used to, in high crime areas. Middle class people have more preconceptions now about those areas.

I wonder how many (if any) posters remember "The Young Ones" episode with the racist cop ?

sadly the only YouTube clip is blocked in the UK, but it's well worth a watch.

Long time ago now, first episode was 1982, last episode was 1984.