East London News A Force for the community…
THE TRAGIC death of Henry Nowak was not the first time a young man has died while police officers don’t see what is before them. This has been overlooked by politicians who have tried to make political capital out of the event.
The death of Stephen Lawrence was a turning point that brought the debate about racism in the police force into public consciousness. The racism was on the street: young whites killing a young man because he was black. That was shocking. The police did not investigate the murder seriously. It was as if they didn’t care about bringing the murderers of a young black man to justice. That was even more shocking.
It took years of calm and dignified campaigning by Stephen Lawrence’s parents to reveal what had happened and go some way towards achieving justice for Stephen. Their refusal to shut up and go away, to insist on their rights to get an answer, led to Macpherson inquiry. The resulting report found that this kind of racism was endemic throughout the police force. It was institutional racism, and it had to be tackled within the institution, not as a one-off error.
Let’s look at two more killings.
Rashan Charles
On 25th July 2017, Rashan Charles was in a car driving through Hackney when police stopped the car. Rashan got out of the car and ran for it. Police gave chase. One officer saw Rashan run into a corner shop and followed him in. The officer put effort into chasing Rashan because, he said, he thought he saw Rashan swallow something. We know what happened in the corner shop thanks to the store’s CCTV. The police officer wrestled Rashan to the ground and held him down. Rashan struggled. Then he went limp. The officer who pinned him down could only see a young black man who had run away from a car-stop in Hackney and was struggling to get away. He didn’t remember he had seen him swallow something.
Rashan stopped struggling because he was dead. He had choked on a packet of drugs stuck in his throat. The CCTV shows that the last moments of Rashan’s life were spent being pinned down on the floor of a corner shop in Hackney by a police officer.
George Floyd died in Minneapolis when a white police officer arrested him on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 Patrick Charles thanked everyone who had sent messages of support, which the family had found very comforting. He called for justice and for peaceful protest until this was obtained. note. The police officer knelt on him, suffocating him. Floyd’s dying words were “I can’t breathe.” Those words gave impetus to the Black Lives Matter movement and became its slogan.
Rashan Charles couldn’t draw in enough air to say that he couldn’t breathe. In the days after his death, local people demonstrated and rallied outside the local police station. This was the first time that Black Lives Matter banners were taken onto the streets of Hackney. Rashan’s father, Patrick Charles, spoke to them, thanking everyone who had sent messages of support, which the family had found very comforting. He called for justice and for peaceful protest until justice was obtained.
Henry Nowak
Henry Nowak died after police answered a call reporting that there had been a racist attack against a Sikh on the streets of Southampton. It seems that police arrived believing the report and did not assess the situation themselves when they arrived, which was an error.
Those police officers were wrong. We don’t yet know why they didn’t assess the situation afresh when they arrived – why they didn’t respond to Henry saying that he couldn’t breathe. They made a mistake in assuming the report that had been phoned in was accurate – but they did not come to the scene and start cuffing the white boy because they had been trained that this was the new anti-racist protocol.
Henry’s father also asked that people did not respond with violent protest so that the efforts to obtain justice for Henry could proceed. There were protests in the streets of Southampton the next night. We don’t yet know how many protestors were local, but we do know that “Tommy Robinson” was present and that several protestors travelled in to the event.
The police in Hackney did not go out looking for black men they could suffocate as a racist act – although racism may have influenced how the officer saw and responded to Rashan Charles. The police in Southampton did not go out looking for a white man to kill because they wanted to show how anti-racist they were being (yes, it does sound stupid – but that is, in effect, what some politicians are saying).
Stephen Lawrence’s parents fought for justice for Stephen, but they gave us all the tremendous gift of an opportunity to tackle institutional racism in the police force. If the police still don’t understand what institutional racism is, we have to carry on until they do understand – including being able to assess a situation on the facts and not on their prejudices about the people involved. People who claim that working to stop racism in an institution means replacing anti-black prejudice with anti-white prejudice are either stupid or trying to get elected – of which more another day.
●Read more about it:
Hackney vigil for Rashan Charles
Police on Lawrence case face investigation
