Current Events > Police commissioner admits cops are racist, vows recruits will be 40% minorities

(+) Yeah! (+)

Dame Cressida Dick assured Londoners that racist officers will be sacked and promised to strain every sinew to hit a target for 40% of new recruits to be from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME) from 2022.

The Met said new recruits will be taught the history of local areas they will police and will learn the importance of cultural awareness during stop and search training, including scenario-based role play.

Dame Cressida said she felt very sorry that trust for police officers among black communities in the capital is so low and admitted: We need to do more to show people that we have zero tolerance of racism. There are over 40,000 people in the Metropolitan Police Service and I have always said we are not free of racism, we are not free of bias or discrimination, she said.4

Figures show black people are almost four times more likely to be stopped and searched in the street than white people in London. They are also six times more likely to be stopped in their vehicles, according to City Hall. Dame Cressidas comments came as Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called for an immediate review of stop and search and the use of Taser, as part of a plan to address concerns over tactics affecting black Londoners. Mr Khans plan also aims to ensure officers are not relying on the smell of cannabis (weed) alone when deciding to stop and search a person, with such incidents subjected to London-wide scrutiny panels.

He has asked the Met to launch a year-long pilot scheme looking at samples to identify any disproportionality relating to ethnicity. Speaking outside Brixton police station, in south London, on Friday, Dame Cressida said the Met is working with Mr Khan and agrees with about 98% of his plan.

She announced an immediate return of a London residency requirement for most new recruits, meaning they will have to have lived in the capital for three of the past six years. I think its good for London and Londoners that the police service reflects and understands London, she said. In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that took place across the capital and many parts of the UK in May, the Met faced accusations of racial profiling following a series of incidents filmed and shared on social media. The most high profile was when Team GB athlete Bianca Williams and her Portuguese sprinter boyfriend, Ricardo Dos Santos, were pulled over and handcuffed in front of their baby in west London in July. Five officers are being investigated for misconduct after footage of the incident was shared widely on Twitter having been posted by former Olympic medallist Linford Christie.

The protests, which were sparked following the death of George Floyd who was killed after a police officer kneeled on his neck in Minneapolis, saw UK protesters calling for an end to systemic racism particularly in the police force. Dame Cressida described Mr Floyds death as utterly awful but insisted UK policing is entirely different.

She added: I know there is more for us to do to gain the confidence of all of our communities. I want all of our communities to trust the Met, I want the Met to be the most trusted police service in the world, she said. But sometimes things go wrong and we do, as you will see, where people have been thoroughly negligent, if they have been, or if this is an event where somebody has been badly injured because policing involves using force, then the Independent Office for Police Conduct will do their investigation, they will come to their conclusions and you see that officers, for example, Im not talking about the videos we have seen this summer, but officers, for example, that display racism are sacked. Thats what we do and quite right to.

Full Article: https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/15/met-police-boss-pledges-to-sack-officers-who-display-racism-13596761/?ito=cbshare

https://i.imgur.com/NhJgC9j.jpg

Not sure how a quota will stop the racism in the force but it's good that she's willing to admit it is there.

The casual blatant racism from police here in the UK has reached the "It would be funny if it was so sad/depressing" stage.

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Dame Dick is nuts tbqh

ImAMarvel posted...

While this is great news, I'd like something like this to happen in America too.

two reasons it wont.

1. minorities aren't looking to become cops.
2. commissioner who pushed for something like this in the US would get fired real quick.

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I don't get what Tiger guy is on about

Black people are actually over-represented in the police force in the US compared to population. About 11% of the adult US population is black, about 13% of cops are black. About 20% of cops are hispanic when about 12-15% of the adult population is hispanic.

Not saying that means cops aren't racist (They often are, I think the percentage of black or hispanic police chiefs or commissioners is like 3%) but the logic of "NO BLACK PEOPLE WATN TO JOINT!?" is just a falsehood. Plenty do.

Hell the very idea that if someone is black or hispanic then they probably have no interest in upholding the law is a really racist thought to have.

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UnfairRepresent posted...

I don't get what Tiger guy is on about

Black people are actually over-represented in the police force in the US compared to population. About 11% of the adult US population is black, about 13% of cops are black. About 20% of cops are hispanic when about 12-15% of the adult population is hispanic.

Not saying that means cops aren't racist (They often are, I think the percentage of black or hispanic police chiefs or commissioners is like 3%) but the logic of "NO BLACK PEOPLE WATN TO JOINT!?" is just a falsehood. Plenty do.

Hell the very idea that if someone is black or hispanic then they probably have no interest in upholding the law is a really racist thought to have.

glad to see my tag for you still holds true...

https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-police-department-diversity.html

surprisingly, representation is not uniform across the country...

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Conflict posted...

I don't think hiring minorities by itself is going to solve the problem with racism in the police force. If nothing else you'll just have more racist and corrupt minorities too.

Exactly.

Also having an army of raw recruits who are minorities won't mean a thing when all the veterans and people in charge are racist white dudes anyway.

You can send 500 black cops to dosmestic disputes or drunks refusing to leave a private business.

But that won't stop any of the ones who go around arresting, harrasing, beating or killing black civilians for no reason in the street

There's that musican whose name I forget who as a hobby records everytime he is pulled over by police because he is black but has a fancy car so they "have to check if it was stolen", it happens 2/3 times a week and it's just depressing.

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