‘Cops most want a ruck with Black people’

THE METROPOLITAN police were accused of “most wanting a ruck with Black people” after new figures revealed the force only authorised batons for Black-led events.

Freedom of Information data extracted from the police by Liberty Investigates found that over the last six years the Met gave a green light to the use of batons at the Notting Hill Carnival and Black Lives Matter protests.

The Met also revealed it has stockpiled £1.5 million in weapons during this period, including 5,900 rounds, The Guardian reported.

The figures were condemned by a spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who partially oversees the force, who said: “It is inaccurate and irresponsible to imply the ethnicity of those likely to be involved in an event or protest influences the tactics considered.

“The approval of the tactical option of baton rounds in these events only is very concerning and the mayor will be raising this matter with senior Met leaders. The Met must account for their decision-making and black Londoners will rightly want to know that they are being treated equally.”

The Voice editor Lester Holloway likened policing of Black events to being policed by the far right. He tweeted: “Like the BNP and EDL, the Metropolitan Police most want a ruck with Black people. From boots in suits to the bruising blues, the spectre of racial violence lurks from many quarters.”

The Met denied that ethnicity was involved in their decisions to only authorise batons for Black events.

Author Nels Abbey tweeted: “The Met Police authorised the use of baton rounds exclusively against Black events – from protests to parties. Yet events like the notorious “White Lives Matter” protest organised by Tommy Robinson were fine. Unconscious bias training may prove useless.”

The Women’s Equality Party, led by the only Black party leader in Mandu Reid, commented: “It’s outrageous that the Met continues to deny its institutional racism.”

Amnesty International also said the baton decisions were an example of institutional racism.

The data was uncovered by Liberty Investigates, the journalism wing of the human rights group Liberty.

It shows that the Met had renamed batons “Attenuating Energy Projectiles” [AEP], and did not hold any data prior to 2017.

A statement from the Met said: “Baton rounds have never been used by the Met in a public order situation. They have been authorised as a precaution in a very limited number of situations in recent years, including [Black Lives Matter] protests in central London in 2020 where serious violence was anticipated and occurred resulting in significant injuries to more than 40 officers.

“Even during this scale of serious violence baton rounds were not deployed demonstrating the level of restraint operational commanders apply when considering their use.”