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Is the Metropolitan Police institutionally corrupt?

Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
He has a point though. Getting stopped by traffic cops in the US can literally be a matter of life and death, especially if you’re black.
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Not in the case he referenced.

FWIW, per encounter the chances of being killed by a police officer in the US are greater if you are white. It would be interesting to know the number where the deceased behaved sensibly and still got shot. I suspect that tends to 0, even in the US. Off topic anyway.
 
One problem in the US, apart from the high number of fatal shootings, is that the race information often goes unrecorded so the official statistics are unreliable.
 
sq225917 said:
Bullets in the engine would stop it as quickly as one to the driver
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A normal bullet is likely to have little or no effect. Officers would need to carry a specialist weapon for the purpose of penetrating an engine block. So that's another type of weapon (in addition to the primary weapons) to be carried, just in case it might be needed.
 
gavreid said:
As Thomas Paine said back in the time of the Enilghtenment: “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_American_Crisis/The_Crisis_No._V
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Coming from the guy who's argument is to blame police corruption on Starmer, that's a peach.
 
vacuum_tubes said:
Coming from the guy who's argument is to blame police corruption on Starmer, that's a peach.
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You can do better than that, surely. Give me some Blairite 'wisdom' about why Starmer was right to defend Dick from the institutional corruption finding...
 
This from a former superintendent of the Met:

There were many reactions this week when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) made known its decision to charge a police firearms officer with the murder of Chris Kaba a year ago. Mine was: why has it taken so long?

...Policing is supposed to be evidence-based, however a critical mass of armed officers put their rational thinking to one side and joined this mass hysteria of handing back their firearms authorisation. If it wasn’t so serious, you’d think it was some kind of pantomime.

What this showed me was the toxic culture of some in the firearms fraternity. It appears as hostile as ever and not in the public interest. I would like to think that this is the minority of firearms officers and the majority are well-meaning public servants. I made a point of speaking to some of the officers who didn’t get caught up in this mass hysteria to find out what their point of view was, some even took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to make their opinions known and were shouted down. Andrew George, a serving police officer in the UK, a firearms officer of well over 10 years in the most hostile environments of Northern Ireland and president of the National Black Police Association, made clear his view that the briefness of the action showed that it “was a protest rather than a general reflection on whether to carry firearms or not”. He added: “It shouldn’t happen again and big changes to the culture need to happen.” I totally agree with him.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...e-firearms-officers-return-to-work-chris-kaba
 
Baroness Casey found the worst behaviours in these armed groups."tackling toxic cultures with clearer statements of
standards for all and tougher enforcement of them; and disbanding and reforming ‘dark
corner’ units where some of the worst behaviours have been found and officers are
equipped to carry lethal firearms."
Difficult to imagine Rowley wasn't aware of all of this
he must have been closely connected with these groups.
 
gavreid said:
Andrew George, a serving police officer in the UK, a firearms officer of well over 10 years in the most hostile environments of Northern Ireland and president of the National Black Police Association, made clear his view that the briefness of the action showed that it “was a protest rather than a general reflection on whether to carry firearms or not”. He added: “It shouldn’t happen again and big changes to the culture need to happen.” I totally agree with him.
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I don’t disagree with this. Officers should know from the outset their terms and conditions. If their terms and conditions change, then they should have opportunity to reflect on that. If the existing conditions change, then careful review and reflection should take place. I would add leadership and culture change into this equation.

It’s quite a few years since I was an AFO, and it was not in the MET. Nor were the AFO’s I indirectly supervised once promoted.
 
Police officers are switching off their body-worn cameras when force is used, as well as deleting footage and sharing videos on WhatsApp.

A BBC investigation has uncovered more than 150 reports of camera misuse by forces in England and Wales - described as "shocking" by a leading officer.

In one case, siblings faced a two-year legal battle over footage showing officers' use of force against them.

The Home Office says police use of cameras must be lawful and justified.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642
 
gavreid said:
Police officers are switching off their body-worn cameras when force is used, as well as deleting footage and sharing videos on WhatsApp.

A BBC investigation has uncovered more than 150 reports of camera misuse by forces in England and Wales - described as "shocking" by a leading officer.

In one case, siblings faced a two-year legal battle over footage showing officers' use of force against them.

The Home Office says police use of cameras must be lawful and justified.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642
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Sadly not surprising but damning nonetheless.

Siblings Louisa, 25, and Yufial, 23 were prosecuted after being accused of assaulting and abusing officers at a Black Lives Matter protest in London in May 2020. They always maintained their innocence and that the police assaulted them.
They faced a two-year legal battle to obtain crucial body-worn video evidence showing use of force by police against them.
The demonstration, outside Parliament, began peacefully but later ended in confrontation.
The clash, which only lasted a little longer than a minute, led to Louisa being restrained by a group of officers using a technique described as involving an "enormous" use of force by one restraint expert.
Mobile phone footage shared on social media showed her head being pressed into the ground.
Both siblings were arrested and charged. Yufial was accused of assaulting an officer, while Louisa was accused of being threatening or abusive towards another.
Footage seen by the BBC shows Louisa being pushed by a female officer while another shows Yufial being struck by a male officer, who is then pulled back by colleagues.

The video wasn't initially disclosed to either of them.
"[I kept thinking] I'm not going crazy, I know what happened, I saw the officer punch my brother," Louisa says.
They were both eventually acquitted. At Yufial's hearing, the judge said it seemed the prosecution had deliberately failed to disclose relevant information.
The BBC has heard multiple complaints that video is not being shared with defence teams under disclosure rules, despite its increasing importance in criminal cases.
We also learned that no body-worn video was disclosed from the camera of the officer who used force on Louisa.
The Met told the BBC it accepts there were errors with disclosure of evidence in Louisa and Yufial's case and apologised in a statement. Despite this, it proceeded with a second case against Louisa, alleging she had provided false information at the police station. She was recently acquitted again.
No action has been taken against any of the officers involved.
The siblings say their "two-year nightmare" has had a significant impact on their lives. Louisa deferred a law degree for three years, fearing a prosecution, while Yufial lost his job. Both blame the police misuse of body-worn video.
 
Andrew C! said:
Shouldn't be the case for any of the 21 million or so pieces of body worn video captured in a 12 month period (not 24 months for the 150 number obtained). Misuse or sharing should be prosecuted, BTW.
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ask the BBC - this is a 150 cases that would otherwise have been hidden from public view. I guess it's the modern equivalent of concealing the id numbers. The body camera's need to have full data loggers, if they don't already. Failure to return the video should be an automatic gross misconduct case - we need zero tolerance to get this cleaned up now, but it won't happen.
 
Andrew C! said:
Misuse or sharing should be prosecuted, BTW.
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Doesn't seem to be happening. In the case I quoted above from the BBC story the Met issued an apology only. No indication anyone was disciplined.

Baroness Casey's comments seem about right. Bodycams were introduced to increase transparency and trust in the police but the police instead see them as a way of covering their backs. A tool they can deploy only when it suits them.
 
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