The News

As a member of the black community people often ask me if I trust the police, a catalogue of injustices, failures and out and out crimes perpetrated against people from ethnic minorities in Britain has eroded the trust that swathes of the community had in those we pay to protect us. So people ask me 'Do you trust the police?' and being the pretty traditional, straight laced liberal that I am I answer yes. I do trust the police. I still carry my house keys in my hand when walking home (to fight attackers with) just like PC Lady* taught me at 14, I still look for a policeman to help me if I get lost, just like Mummy taught me when I was 4. I have faith in them, I trust them to find the baddies and keep me safe from them. I trust the uniform, I trust the hat and badge and even the shit looking bikes. But the downright thuggery shown to Ian Tomlinson during last week's G20 protests has absolutely astounded and appalled me. Should I be astounded and appalled? Probably not. Should I even be surprised? With the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on my doorstep, the failure of the police to apprehend John Worboys who may have raped and sexually assaulted over 100 women in six years, their failure to catch rapist Kirk Reid despite him being a suspect with DNA on file for over four years (again in my neighbourhood), the BBC's The Secret Policeman documentary, The MacPherson Report, the fact that the men widely believed to be the killers of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 are still walking free etc..etc..etc... should have eroded my faith in the boys and girls in blue, but video evidence of a man in a passive stance merely walking along the street trying to get home and away from the protests being hit and pushed by a police officer has shocked and enraged me. 

This is probably because not catching a criminal is one thing, but attacking a defenceless man walking home from work is an entirely different kettle of shit. The police are paid to protect and serve not to attack anyone under any circumstances. Especially people who have made no violent or insolent overtures. I hate to think that there's no one but my own good self to protect me anymore. But it's finally dawned on me that I could be unlucky and come across that one violent, thuggish or racist police officer just when I need them the most. 

And this isn't solely a race or women's issue either, this could happen to any of us. Ian Tomlinson was an average looking white male wending his way home. Whether he should have moved out of the police officers' way (There's no evidence that they asked him to) is immaterial what happened to him was wrong and illegal. Even if he hadn't died it would still be wrong and illegal.

*This is not her real name.