The Endless Cycle: Met Police's Violent and Invasive Racial Profiling of Black Children Continues Unchecked.

In the heart of London, the weathered and storied pavements have silently witnessed regal parades, anti-war protests, and civil rights protests over many years. London, the capital city, is often seen as the shining city on the hill. London has the rightful claim to be a world city, hyper-multicultural, vibrant, and exciting. 

Of late, however, we have also witnessed the spectre and shadowed lived experiences of Black children being racially profiled, beaten and strip-searched by an increasingly aggressive and confrontational Metropolitan Police Service. 

Terrell DeCosta Jones Burton

There are many cases one could highlight, but the case of a 15-year-old schoolboy, Terrell DeCosta Jones Burton, who, in 2017, was subject to a brutal attack by Met Police Officers is particularly noteworthy. Terrell received critical hospital treatment following his brutal, wrongful, and violent arrest while cycling in Bermondsey, South London.

Here, we see a beautiful young soul whose only misstep was existing at the deadly intersection of systemic police racism, adolescence, and being in possession of melanated skin. In a tired old repeat of our tragic history, the Police had targeted the wrong boy. Despite that, the Independent Office of Police Complaints (IOPC) unsurprisingly cleared Met officers of any wrongdoing in 2019 two years later. 

Terrell, his family, and the wider community are left to swing in the wind. The response to our anger and outrage? No trauma-informed treatment, no apology, no compensation, no justice – just us, and a bucket load of tears and pain with a community left in the deep well of perpetual trauma. 

Add to the Terrell incident, the savage baton attack by a plain-clothed police officer on a schoolboy in Romford in 2018, yet another incident where the community is again left in deep pain, and the officer concerned is given the all-clear and a pardon.

Add to these the cases of:

The case of 12-year-old Kia Agyepong

of Islington, who was playing with a toy plastic gun in his home on a summer evening in 2020 when a neighbour reported seeing a Black man with a gun in the property.  The Met armed response squad burst into his family home, which he shared with his Mum and two elder sisters. The police swat team raided her property and arrested her son. 
 

Or the horrific case of Child Q, a Black 15-year-old schoolgirl in 2022 who was forcibly stripped, searched in school by Met officers and forced to remove her Tampon on the basis that she smelled of cannabis.

And more recently, in 2023, we saw the case of Child X, who, when playing outside with a water pistol during the school holidays with his younger sister, was reported by a police officer as having a gun and rammed off his scooter by a van of armed police officers, surrounded by armed police, handcuffed and whose mother was told when she protested that they nearly killed her son was dismissed and told, “You’re being aggressive, and you’re lucky we're not arresting him for possession of a imitation firearm.”  

The Snail Pace of Policing Reform.

When it comes to the issue of police reform, change has been bone-achingly slow-moving at a glacial pace. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) Police Race Action Plan, the Met Commissioners Turn Around Plan alongside Mayor Sadiq Khans Race Action Plan, all responses to the findings of the Casey Review are, have all failed to deliver any meaningful change - a testament to the resilience of racism in policing. 

We now know that many of the advances made in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the seminal Stephen Lawrence report published in 1999, in hindsight, were short-term gains followed by longer-term losses.  The Police began the lengthy process of rebuilding and regaining Black community confidence in those early years; however, that brief honeymoon period didn’t last long. 

Book your ticket today. 

Within a decade of the publication of the McPherson report, Boris Johnson was Mayor of London and busily dismantling the entire police accountability and race monitoring systems and processes we fought so long and hard to secure. Boris, alongside the then Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, declared in the forward to a 2008 Metropolitan Police Authority Race and Faith Inquiry report into Black officers being unfairly targeted in misconduct procedures that Met was "no longer an institutionally racist organisation." 

Johnsons' catastrophic error in dismantling police accountability structures in London had devastating consequences and triggered the worst deterioration in police-community relationships ever seen in modern British history. Black public confidence in the police is at an all-time low, lower than the levels seen in the uprising against the culture of police racism witnessed in 1981 or 2011. The National Black Police Association (NBPA) has called a national Black police recruitment for the third time in its long history; such is their concern about the fact that the Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has refused to acknowledge systemic racism while internally he has launched a full-scale political attack on the NBPA and Met BPA. 

What this demonstrates beyond doubt is that Black people have consistently boycotted joining the police in recent times, and these figures demonstrate that reality. 

Let’s be straight up and down about it, Black people are not joining a “police force” they see as toxic, racist and harmful.  A report published by the Police Foundation in 2020 found that Black officer numbers had reached their peak of 1,504 in 2016 and rose by just 86 between 2007 and 2018, from 1,412 to 1,498.  

That’s an average of seven black people a year in each of those long eleven years. Today, applications have slowed to barely a trickle, and Black people are rightly refusing to join a police service they see as racist, aggressive, hostile and now targeting their children. 

We know that the weight of constant suspicion, the presumption of guilt, bears heavily upon their young shoulders. London's Black children, living their best racially profiled lives, face a policing system where systemic police racism is as toxic as the iconic London smog that once blanketed this great city.

The Data Speaks, But Who Listens?

What these shocking figures have revealed is a disheartening narrative. Black, Asian, and mixed-ethnicity children account for an astonishing 69% of youth arrests in London. Such figures reflect not random chance but a pattern of targeting, a systemic hunt set against Black communities.

The hard numbers are one thing, but we don’t live as data points. Statistics, however compelling, are sterile without the pulse of human experience. 

They do not bleed, they do not weep, and they do not convey the tremor in a mother’s voice as she schools her child on how to survive an encounter with those who should protect them.

The Trauma Imposed: The Echo of History in Modern Policing

The scars left by this relentless racial profiling of our communities are not only physical but cut deep into the communal psyche. 

Cases like Child A, Q and X are not outliers but a repeat of a well-trodden path of systemic discrimination in policing. The disproportionate searching, the aggressive arrests without subsequent action, the ignominy of innocence lost to police prejudice—all this fuels a cycle of trauma, fear and anger that reverberates through families and communities. 

Our collective community police trauma is deep, abiding and terrifying. As Black parents, we are always a single heartbeat away from experiencing our children being brutalised by the Met. That trauma is lived and real, and unless there is some process of recognising and managing that community trauma, it will continue to seethe. 

God forbid a child should die as a consequence of violent police arrest and systemic racism that legitimises racial profiling because, at that point, all hell will break loose. You would’ve thought these smart politicians would know these totemic issues and understand their power and potency. They do not, and the implications are that the city hasn't learned the lessons of its past. 

A System Unchecked: The Spectre of Adultification and Misguided Authority

The haunting spectre of adultification looms larger every day, casting Black children not as sentient human beings of potential and wide-eyed curiosity but as all potentially violent criminals, threats to society and law and order, to be violently confronted, restrained with overwhelming force. 

This deeply pernicious and explosive trend must be fully acknowledged, challenged, and must be confronted by Black communities ourselves as, frankly, no one else gives a damn. The APA is resolute in its mission to ring the alarm, mobilise communities and stand at the vanguard of this battle, demanding reforms and transparent accountability from politicians and the police. 

The Call to Arms: A Rallying Cry for Justice

It is not enough to shake our heads at the monotonous and unsettling statistics or tsk, tsk away at the harrowing stories above. This is a call to arms, a call for unity and action. We must stop simply reacting to tragedies we can all see coming. 

As responsible adults, we need to be proactive in defending our Black children and do recall that 90% of our children who are arrested are subsequently released without charge. Let that sink in. 

The APA conference aims to prevent an all too predictable future because the real reality is that as relations stand now, it would take just one horrific incident caught on a smartphone London could find itself burning as a result. 

Conclusion: A Society on the Precipice

London’s Black community now stands on the precipice, looking into the chasm of public confidence carved by the relentless nature of systemic police racism that, like water, wears away all resistance. We now face a profound choice: do we, knowing what we know now, simply step back into complacency, or do we organise and stride forward into action? 

The disproportionate arrest rates and systemic failures of a policing system are not just statistics; they are a grim testament to the reality of the system of apartheid policing and Jim Crow justice that others sanitise with semi-pseudo-scientific police and Home Office beaurospeak (made-up word), using words like “disproportionality:, ‘unconscious and implicit bias’s and ‘diversity’, or ‘we are committed to eradicating racism’, and the best one of all is of course ‘we are working with the community’. 

We are the sculptors of justice and the architects of the future we wish to bequeath to our children. 

The APA Conference on Policing and the Black Child has to be more than an event—it must be the crucible where we forge a new charter of demands for policing, where the concerns of Black communities are taken to the top table. We collectively demand that our children be safeguarded from the horrors of systemic racism in policing. 

A Final Thought: The Vigilance of Change

We understand that our work is not done. Our generation must be the bearers of change, lest the next find themselves burdened with battles that should have been won. The data, the cases, and the experiences all point to an immutable truth: the time for change is not just nigh; it has arrived.

Join us at the APA conference. Stand with us in fighting for justice and equity and preserving our youth's future. Let us begin the work that cannot, must not, wait.

Key Arrest Statistics and Demographics

·      69% of children arrested in London are from Black, Asian, or mixed-ethnicity backgrounds.

·      Black and Asian communities each account for 8% of all arrests nationwide.

Disparities in Policing

·      Evidence suggests racial profiling and systemic bias within UK policing.

·      Black and Asian individuals are more likely to be stopped and searched.

Media and Political Influence

· Some politicians and media outlets perpetuate harmful stereotypes, associating Black and Asian communities disproportionately with a crime.

Data on Taser Use

·      27.5% of Taser incidents involved Black children.

·      27.5% of Taser incidents involved children experiencing a mental health episode.

·      17-year-olds were the most affected age group.

Strip-search Data

·      More than 2,840 children were strip-searched by police between 2018 and 2022.

·      Black children are up to six times more likely to be searched.

·      Over 50% of searches led to no further action.

·      A significant number of searches occurred without an appropriate adult present.

Youth Justice System Statistics

·      Black children are disproportionately represented at various stages of the justice system.

·      18% of stop and searches (where ethnicity was known) involve Black children.

·      15% of arrests involve Black children.

·      34% of children in custody on remand are Black.

·      29% of the youth custody population is Black (up from 18% ten years ago).

End. 

Crisis Unfolds: The Shocking Surge in Britain's Policing of Innocent Black Children.

Crisis Unfolds: The Shocking Surge in Britain's Policing of Innocent Black Children

The news that there has been a 13% increase in the last year in the stop and searches of Black children will come as both horrifying and devastating news to many in Britain's Black communities and beyond. 

Recently published Home Office data revealed that in the last year, we have seen a massive ramping up of racial profiling and targeting black children by British police forces across the UK and, in particular, London at the hands of the Metropolitan Police. 

And the terrible news is these figures are rising, and child arrests are becoming increasingly violent. 

In addition to this worrying new trend, London-based youth charity Redthread has publically expressed its concerns after youth workers reported seeing increased incidents of black children, particularly black boys, arriving in hospital A& E departments after suffering from Taser injuries, head injuries, memory loss and trauma resulting from violent arrests. 

The majority of these arrests have led to no further action. In other words, most children are innocent of any crime. 

Recently published Home Office statistics indicate that out of 100,000 children stopped by police nationally last year, 20% were black youth, a stark overrepresentation given they constitute only 6% of the general population. 

Figures courtesy of @gmhalyes on X 

Alarmingly, nearly 90% of these young individuals, subjected to the indignity and distress of racial profiling under the guise of 'intelligence-led' policing, were subsequently found to be innocent.

Figures courtesy of @gmhales on X 

According to a report discussed in November 2023 at the newly created London Policing Board, over 70 children required hospital treatment, including plastic surgery for dog bites and taser injuries following violent, aggressive arrests that caused a range of injuries and severe trauma.

Terrell Decosta Jones-Burton, a 15-year-old, receiving critical hospital treatment following a wrongful and violent arrest while cycling in Bermondsey, South London, in 2017. 

The Officer concerned was cleared of any wrongdoing. 

The political context. 

The very year that saw the cases of Child Q, X and A (a ten-year-old Black girl tasered by the Met) alongside the excoriating publication of the Casey Review, the response from officers on the ground was to target more Black children. 

That message from the ranks was crystal clear; they gave us the metaphorical middle finger; despite the warm words and rhetoric of the Commissioner and statements by the Mayor of London about 'tackling racism in the Met,' the objective response is clearly written in these disturbing figures. 

In short, Met officers have decided the best way to respond to widespread concerns about their proactive racist practice is to ramp up the targeting of Black children. 

The consequence is that we now see a new development in the nature and scale of systemic racism in operational policing. That is the transparent extension of the type of vicious systemic racism and heavy-handed police brutality generally reserved for adults, which is now being extended to our children.

Think about that for one minute. 

OK, let's keep it moving.  

The Met is a police force, not a service. Referring to a systemically racist institution as a 'Service' is a total misnomer that fails to accurately reflect the reality of their oppressive policing of London's Black communities. 

The term 'Service' implies a commitment to public welfare and safety, a standard that is starkly contradicted by the systemic racism and brutality embedded within the culture of the Metropolitan Police. 

The stone-cold truth and their own figures prove this the Metropolitan Police Force oppresses black communities rather than protecting them and discriminates rather than serves. 

London's Black communities should redefine the Metropolitan Police as the ' Metropolitan Police Force.'  This encapsulates the harsh, bitter truth and the oppressive nature of the policing of London's Black communities  

Publically redesignating the Met as a force, not a service, acknowledges the harrowing experiences of those on the receiving end of their racist policing practices and serves as a constant reminder of the urgent need for systemic reform within this institution.

The Met doesn't care about your concerns. 

We all know the horrendous cases of Child Q, Child X and Child A and the public outcry that followed. Yet here we are today, with these new Home Office figures confirming that what we are witnessing is a very worrying and growing trend: the criminalisation of black children being subject to racial profiling and violent arrests.  

The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) highlighted the issue of adultification and the Case of Child X late last year, revealing the horrific armed hard stop that saw a 13-year-old schoolboy rammed off his scooter and held at gunpoint. At an APA public meeting (held at the IDPAD Centre in Hackney, the family's home borough), we saw a packed venue and a furious crowd demanding justice and accountability. Yet despite widespread and overwhelming public condemnation – not a single officer has been disciplined regarding this Case.  

 Things are getting worse. 

This important Hackney public meeting, followed by another APA pubic meeting among the Somalia communities of Lambeth at Stockwell Community Centre (where a 14-year-old Muslim girl was aggressively arrested outside her school by a School Police Officer) both gave a solid mandate for the APA urgently expose and address this critical issue. Parents at both meetings were angry and demanded action. The APA is serving the community and has decided to take action.  

According to data provided by the Metropolitan Police, 31 children between 11-17 years old required hospitalisation for police-related injuries across London in 2023. However, this figure was immediately challenged by Redthread, who alone recorded 24 child injuries after the use of police force in the same period at just eight London hospitals. The conclusion is clear - we can have no confidence that the Met's figures capture the actual reality. 

We suspect there is a massive underreporting of the violent arrests of all children, particularly Black children, who are hospitalised due to the use of police force, the vast majority of whom are guilty of no crime.  Redthread youth workers reported seeing increased numbers of children arrive at hospitals with injuries such as police dog bites and other injuries received during arrest and other interactions with the police. These included head injuries, fractures, memory loss and wounds requiring plastic surgery. 

The significant point to note is that this disproportionality has increased over the last two years, at the same time as public concerns over previous child arrests and the publication of the  Casey Review. Black communities are being policed by the worst nightmares and stereotypical anti-Black assumptions of serving racist police officers and commented upon by a largely unrepresented and hostile press. 

What the above figures show is that despite the racist stereotypical reporting of sections of the press, the reality is that both Asian and White communities are more likely to be arrested for gun crimes. Figures courtesy of @gmhalyes on X

The Talk.

One aspect of the lived Black experience that is not well understood is the extent to which black parents are forced to provide survival techniques and advice to their children in the event they encounter aggressive and racist policing. 

Baroness Casey, in her searing and devastating report into police racism, misogyny, and homophobia, was at pains to point out to predominantly white audiences, in many subsequent interviews and speeches, this little-known (outside of Black communities) fact. 

Until she spoke with black parents, she was entirely unaware of the realities of how black families are forced to equip their children with the skills necessary to successfully navigate the realities of systemic racism in policing. There comes a time as children approach adolescence when Black parents will sit down with their sons and daughters and have "the talk." 

This coming-of-age 'talk' involves equipping their children with the knowledge, tactics, and skills to de-escalate an encounter with racist police officers. Is this really the vision of a multicultural Britain we want to see? One where our children are increasingly seen as 'fair game' by a predatory police force that refuses to accept the toxic reality of their profoundly dysfunctional policing culture

It's less than a year since Baroness Casey published her damning review highlighting what the black community has known for the last five decades that the Metropolitan Police Service is a systemically racist, misogynist, and homophobic organisation. We would add to that list Institutional islamophobia. 

What is crystal clear is the persistence of police racism leads us to conclude that racism is secreted into the very sequencing of the Met's organisational DNA. 

What the Baroness Casey Review revealed was the reality of a racial hierarchy and a bruising, dominant and deeply dysfunctional policing culture that infects every aspect of the organisation. 

And let's be clear about the broader dynamics at play: it took the brutal murder of a woman, Sarah Everards (whose grandfather was a Jamaican from Saint Elizabeth), by a serving police officer, followed by the vicious policing of the Sarah Everard memorial at Clapham Common, and finally the intervention of another white woman Baroness Casey, to inform the British public, of precisely the very same things Black communities have been telling the powers that be for the last 50 years. 

London accounted for almost a third (32%) of stop and searches of children in England and Wales. Baroness Casey was right when she said stopping and searching by force needed "a fundamental reset". She also highlighted research that shows "larger numbers of Black people felt traumatised and humiliated by the experience of stop and search than other ethnic groups."

Black Trauma Matters. 

Imaging the trauma experienced by Black children, their families and the broader community of repeated, aggressive and, on occasion, violent policing by a hostile force? 

Police racism is deep, persistent and consistent. History demonstrated that within the beating heart of the culture of policing lies an unrelenting river of racism infecting every aspect of operational policing, stop and search, road traffic stops, drug possession, rape, murder investigations, Case after wretched Case has been publicly exposed and driven home the terrifying point that we are subject to the soft apartheid and devastating outcomes of police service that has effectively demonised Black adults and children as being inherently criminal and dangerous. 

Racial profiling requires a closed system mindset and is just one aspect of a systemic culture of racism. It's a self-reinforcing belief system where disproportionate focus on Black people leads to disproportionate stop and searches and increased arrests that inevitably leads, somewhat ironically, to the reinforcement of police prejudicial stereotypes that justify a continued disproportionate focus on Black people. Psychologically, police officers have, in other words, executed, rationalised and justified their innate prejudice as 'just doing my job."

Policing culture. 

Such is the ferocity of the culture of policing (and all greenlit by the stubborn refusal of the Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to admit his force is systemically racist) that the subculture or what was once known as 'canteen culture' simply eats race equality policies for breakfast, followed by sexual equality for lunch, and a late snack on those tasty LGTBQ policies. Such woke policies are despised mainly and ignored by the massed ranks of PCs. 

A Call To Action. 

In conclusion, the Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) is issuing an urgent call to action, appealing to every concerned citizen, community leader, and human rights advocate to amplify our message. We urge you to share this article and our crucial petition. This petition is directed at the Mayor of London, the London Policing Board, and the Home Office, demanding immediate action to address the profoundly concerning practices of the Metropolitan Police Force. 

You can sign the petition here. 

Specifically, we are calling for the Metropolitan Police Force to be mandated to routinely monitor and report all interactions with children under the age of 18, especially in instances where force is used or the children require hospital treatment. 

This is a critical step towards transparency and accountability, ensuring that the rights and well-being of our children are safeguarded.

Furthermore, we insist that the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor directly consult with London's Black communities. The aim is to develop stringent, transparent, and fair protocols governing the strip search of children, particularly in sensitive cases where intimate body parts are exposed. Such measures are vital to protect our youth's dignity and rights and prevent the misuse of police authority.

Your support in sharing this article and endorsing the petition is invaluable. It is a step towards ensuring justice and upholding the rights of our children and towards building a society where the safety and dignity of every child are paramount, irrespective of race or background.

To this end, the APA will also host a "Policing and the Black Child Conference" (hat tip to Diane Abbott MP- if you know, you know) in May  19th 2024 in partnership with the University of East London's Peel Centre on Policing one year on from the publication of the Casey Review. Contact us if you want to join our APA-focused youth working group developing the conference's theme.  

Conference details will be announced soon. 

Follow APA for more info. 

 

 

Romford Mother Speaks Out on The Beating Of Her Son by Met Police.

Introducing my new You Tube channel, an exciting collaboration between myself and Arapat TV committed to my weekly show  #LeeJasperDriveTime Forgive me, I’ve been a bit slow in updating the blog recently, all thats about to change and I invite you to subscribe to the channel to get the latest content. 

This week's show is an exclusive interview with the mother of the Mum of 17 yr old black boy, who along with his 14 yr old brother, was arrested in #Romford recently. 

Harrowing testimony of what happened that day with new harrowing details and a mother demanding that @MayorofLondoninstructs the @metpoliceukCommissioner to #SuspendPCKevinRawley

Filming in #Romfordthe other day for this film and I was approached by two white white cockney women, and asked what I’m doing, I tell them I’m filming in relation to the incident the other day, and they told me the biggest pile of crap, that they said, they'd been told by police.

So there we were chatting, firstly they told me that arrested boy lives above their shop and stinks of cannabis all the time. Secondly, they said the black boy who was arrested, had assaulted a police officer, prior to filming beginning. 

Thirdly, the second black boy who had run off, was a "known drug dealer" or else why would he run off?

They also told me, that it was it was " common knowledge" that Black boys with knives are “committing most of the crimes in their area.” 

When I asked where they had got their information, they told me their local @metpoliceuk officers had briefed them “on the circumstances of the arrest " and from that information, it was absolutely clear " the boys were drug dealers."

When I told them, the arrested black boy did not in fact live above their shop, that, in fact he had no previous criminal record, and his "drug dealing mate" was in fact his 14-year-old brother who ran home to alert the mother, their response was instant and shocking,"Well we don't know about that, but we all know is black kids committing all the crime around here."

When I showed them their borough crime profile that proved otherwise, they said "you can't trust the police figures most people don't report crime".

When I pointed out the disproportionate use of violence by police in arresting black youth, and the differential ethnic charging regime for the possession of cannabis it made not one jot of difference. They said "I'm not being funny but you are the racist, not the police officer"

It was a staggering level of ignorance, these woman simply refused to be moved off their prejudice. What's clear is that @MPSHavering #Romford are running a covert smear, propaganda campaign against the boys. These women said they have been fully briefed by local PCs.

So not only have the @metpoliceuk refused to #SuspendPCKevinRawley they're running a covert propaganda campaign to discredit these two young black boys. What is the @MayorofLondon and @SophieKLindendoing about racist propaganda misinformation campaign?

So my question to @MPSHavering is what action are you going to take to investigate precisely what locals have been told by Romford PC's ? @  and why is Met PC Kevin Rawley still in work despite being under investigation by the @IOPC_Help? Such is the level of anger in the black community that failing to suspend this officer constitutes a definitive provocation and will lead to conflict on our streets. 

Dear Met Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick please stop racially  targeting our children.

Here are your officers, publicly searching a young black girl child in east London, we all know that this should've been be done by a policewoman. Have we now decided that white male police officers can search teenage black girls?

Watch the video here.... A

This occurred in East London, and on the 23rd May there is a strategic, #StopAndSearch meeting taking place in Hackney, this meeting will set out a strategic community framework for the use of stop and search powers and the policing of cannabis, in London. (See below for event details)

The sponsoring organisations, hope to collectively agree on a manifesto demand, setting out a policing agenda for the forthcoming, London mayoral elections, due to take place in May 2015.
Stop and search will loom large in that election, and with your support, we intend to make it so.

Can you imagine, if this is taken place with a 14-year-old Muslim girl in Tower Hamlets? The response would be overwhelming. What that tells us is there a differential policing styles, operating in London and bringing differential policing to distinct ethnic groups, in accordance with favourite prejudices, terrorism for the Muslims and cannabis for the Blacks.

Dear Mr Mayor of London​ Sophie Linden​ I and indeed many others, have consistently and repeatedly warned you about your failure, to focus on the ever-worsening relationships between London's African, and African Caribbean communities and the Metropolitan police service, during your time in office, you have chosen to ignore and reject any idea that the Metropolitan police service could in any way be illegally, and en masse, racially profiling London's black communities.

You're now massively increasing stop and search at a time when public trust is it lowest Level in recorded history, and as a result of your continued failure to interject, restrain and where necessary confront, the deep institutional bias that is residual in the core policing operational practice. to be honest, I find this quite bizarre, given you were a practising solicitor for many cases of police racism and yet we can find virtually no political response to the challenge of racial profiling in stop and search.

Can you imagine, a Labour London Mayor, being outflanked by a Tory Prime Minister who insisted that the burning injustices our communities face, at the hands of London police officers, must come to an end?
Whilst she spoke boldly, you in stark contrast, have remained utterly silent. That deafening silence may come, at enormous cost to you, the capital and indeed the country at large,

Institutionalised racism within the police service, has produced "soft apartheid" like policing culture, where any and all police racism, can be legally justified and explained away, under the existing law.

While the police and the Home Office, research and statistical analysis on ethnicity and the use of, stop and search figures and cannabis cautions/charges, have long demonstrated that your our officers are targeting black youths using this age-old racist, policing prescription.

There is growing anger at this burning injustice in our community, and that includes your own particular failure, as the head of the police service, to tackle institutionalised police racism, racial profiling, stop and search, disproportionate charging and the failure to tackle police officers engaged in gross and often violent racist arrests.

The response of the public, seen here in the video below, is a testament to the fact that the police are no longer trusted by many in our community.
The Met hs lost our public trust and confidence as they continue to abuse and harass young black boys and girls, using their catchall convenience power of stop and search, with the usual add-on, "I smell or suspected she was in possession of Cannabis or illegal drugs." Let us remember that the British Crime Survey, has consistently shown all the last 30 years, that by their own admission, white people are the biggest user of cannabis in the United Kingdom by a country mile.

After the Romford arrest (please see my latest exclusive interview with the mother) the final vestiges of any trust, that remained have now evaporated under the glaring heat of institutional police racism. It can be a long old hot summer if the police of the beard like this once our young people break up from school

And yet, research tells us that the police are disproportionately targeting black youths for #StopAndSearching charging, and sending youth for possession of cannabis, yet in contrast, the figures show that London's white youth, are routinely given a caution when the amounts of offences and the remarkable the research shows that this discrimination exists, and this is important, even when the number of drugs, and the number of previous offences of suspects, are exactly the same.

What this means is black youth are being, Illegally force-fed into the criminal justice system, where they then begin to see racist racism and disproportionality ramp up at every stage of the criminal justice process. This is exactly what David Lammy MP described, in his recent report on racism within the criminal justice system.

What this demonstrates, and listen to me well, is that the police are using a combination of disproportionate stop and search and the suspicion of cannabis possession, as the rationale for over 80% of all stop and searches that take place in London.

It's got to stop, any one of these arrests could be a catalyst for wider civil disturbances as communities erupt under the constant pressure of racial profiling and police violence. Our communities are now pressured cookers building up a head of steam, and Mr Mayor the inevitable truth for you, as you head into the last 12 months before the mayoral elections is stark and gravely worrying.

Having failed to rein in the worst excesses of institutionalised racism in policing practice you're administration has allowed this situation, a situation that was clearly avoidable and could have been diverted, to build up such momentum, that I suspect there is very little you can do to avoid the now almost inevitable outcome.

Any incident triggered by racist policing and police brutality, whether real or imagined, can cause widespread disturbance, such is the level enmity few in the community are now prepared to stand by and believe London's police officers when they say they are not targeting black youths.

The figures don't lie. The awful truth is, and here we see a country and a capital city that refuses to learn from its history, that if LondonLondon does not learn, then London will burn, and the primary responsibility for this epic tragedy, will live at the door of the mayor's office that is willfully and consistently refused to challenge Metropolitan police racism

With thanks to Peachey Mcqueen​ and Tears Carpenter​  for posting the video. And if anyone knows this family Id like to talk to them so ends them my way. Please share this information, as they avidly read my page to gauge public opinion. So like, share and leave your comment, I guarantee anything you write here, will be seen by the powers that be. Time to speak truth to power.