BRE

Jesus H Park! He didn’t commit a traffic offence! There was a firearms marker on the car. He was handcuffed because of a risk of a firearm being in the vicinity. Once it was determined there wasn’t he was free to leave the scene. He wasn’t aggressive and neither were the police, who diffused the potential situation well.

 

Dunno, maybe the bobbies weren't sent out from HQ especially, could be they were just in the area when Ben's car was flagged up...

 

Well as in all these cases let’s look at what the law finds and the outcome

 

Similar to you, I've been stopped in my car 3 times and once in person. All four times they explained why but 3 of them could be described as spurious and wouldn't have been accepted if i was BAME in the current climate. On all occasions I'd done nothing wrong although on one occasion they eventually did try to get me for driving without insurance but didn't know that when they pulled me over.

The fact is that all "random" stops by the police are based on an element of profiling, that's just realism. Even down to the clothes you wear will effect how you're perceived.

The only element of profiling that is currently deemed unacceptable is race, differentiating by sex is a much larger "discrimination" issue but is seen as fine and justified.

I am absolutely in agreement that things need to be equalised but it's very tricky. We're almost getting to a stage where I could be wrongly stopped and have no recourse but a BAME person is stopped in exactly the same situation and has access to legal recompense. That is tricky to balance and makes it impossible to police.

The only way to truly stop any element of profiling is to stop random actions by the police but I don't see any will for that at all from any part of the community.

 

Should they have waited for armed backup ?, should they have gone in hard ?, or should they have followed what they felt was the correct approach in their opinion and acted on instinct ?. Should Police follow any guidelines and go in hard , there is potential in any situation for violence should it become procedure to have arms " just in case " . The Police in this country dont carry fiearms , the do most other areas in in the world , they try to defuse most situations and act with a common sense approach , the Police themselves have rejected being armed , they put themselves in dangerous situations daily to protec the general public and by en large do a fantastic job .

 

Would you have preferred them to simply let a potentially armed and dangerous criminal simply walk/drive off. The fact is we rely on a largely unarmed police force to confront and deal with these situations everyday.

 

I put links on the other thread to Home Office reports questioning the success rate of stop and search. It's not very successful as a policy at all.

Any evidence of this traffic offence yet?

 

They agreed on the bodycam footage and the subsequant police statement confirmed as much . Its gone quiet on the " outrage " front . Perhaps as part of the BLM " defund the police stance" all traffic offences should be let go that would be a major step forward .. Not stopping vehicles without insurance- licences - MOTs etc would slash crime rates and of course reduce the % of arrests , and as a bonus make driving a lot cheaper for all .

 

You drive a car legally and you've never been stopped. There's BAME people out there who also drive a car legally and have been stopped several times. That's the difference. That's your white privilege that you're blissfully unaware of.

 

The point of both cases is the reason for the stops. For BRE was there really cloned plates. For the athletes were they really driving erratically. We'll see.

 

White priviledge ?, what to be legal ? , thousands of BAME drivers dont get stopped % wise i would be willing to bet nore non BAME people are stopped on a daily basis . Should the Police have escalated the BRE situation with regards the intel on the car ?, full armed response - surrounded by armed police ?, or should they use instinct ? . I'm not really bothered about my " blissfull unawarenes " i do know that non compliance with the law and breaking said law should be investigated whatever race creed or colour .

 

Without disputing your overall point - because I agree there is disproportionality - you make it sound a little binary.

There will also be BAME people who have never been stopped and white people who have - me for example.

However only one group of people seem to have a system for complaining about it..

 

BAME people are much more likely to be stopped than white people. (Home Office figures)

 

Completely agree. I referenced the disproportionality in my post. It's wrong and needs to be equalised, not even arguing that fact.

It's not the only, or even biggest, statistical anomaly about being stopped though.

As I say though it's creating a two tier system where BAME people can complain about being stopped but I wouldn't have access to that process. it's a difficult thing to justify and even more difficult to overcome.

However, I will say once again, I agree the process needs to be equalised.

 

Not sure why the club feel like they need to get involved

 

I’m not gonna read 8 pages of this but here’s my opinion.
The police were simply doing their fecking job. He bought a dodgy car that had markers on it. Absolutely nothing to do with the fact he’s black!
I’m getting sick of black and Asian people thinking that they are somehow singled out for spot checks. They’re not, the police were doing their job.
And as for the club looking at legal action..maybe they’d be better investing money into the team rather than wasting it on this matter.