No to arming the police
The police are unaccountable and think they can act with impunity, even when it comes to killing innocent people, writes Simon Hardy
The recent tragic murder of Mike Brown, a young Black American by police in Ferguson, Missouri is another example of why the routine arming of the police can only lead to more violence and bloodshed.
Brown, who was only 18, was rudely ordered onto the pavement by a police officer. When he refused because of the officer’s aggressive manner, the officer tried to choke him and then shot him multiple times as he ran away. According to a friend Mike Brown pleaded with the policeman as he lay bleeding on the street that he was unarmed but the officer just kept on firing.
After the incident, Brown’s body was left in the street for hours as hundreds of armed police poured into the area to organise “crowd control”, turning up with dogs, sub machine guns and tear gas to clear the area of enraged local people.
Then two days later a mentally ill unarmed 25 year old Black man named Ezell Ford was shot dead by police in LA. Eyewitnesses said he was complying with police and lying on the pavement when he was shot.
These incidents are just the latest in a long list of innocent, unarmed people shot dead by the police in the US. The tragic legacy of an armed police force with institutionally racist practices.
But in Britain too, we have a police force that has blood on its hands. People like Azelle Rodney, Anthony Grainger and Mark Duggan through to Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by anti-terror police (the police then spent millions investigating the de Menezes family) – add to this list hundreds more people who have died in police custody, with no police officer facing prison for any charges of murder or misconduct.
The only serious attempt to secure justice was when PC Simon Harwood was put on trial for the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in 2009. He was sacked for gross misconduct but a manslaughter trial found him not guilty. The fact that no police officer has ever faced justice for killing someone means they feel they can act with impunity.
A 2012 poll revealed that 47% of people surveyed wanted police to be routinely armed. This ideas comes from the fear that is generated – often by the media – that violent crime is all around us an only a well armed police force can stop it, either through intimidation (“we might shoot you”) or implementation (“we will shoot you”). As we have seen in the US repeatedly over many years, the number of unarmed people shot dead, many of them Black, is a national scandal – one that is covered up and downplayed by the establishment but one that should be a source of constant shame.
Worryingly, in Britain in recent years the police have become increasingly armed. The war on terror has given them licence to carry out more armed patrols, with armed police a ubiquitous sight at many transport hubs or outside government buildings. It all adds to a climate of fear, suggesting that the only way to stop terrorism is more armed police, which is an attempt to make us forget that the only way to really stop terrorism is through politics – through making Britain a country that isn’t associated with bombing and occupying other countries and taking away people’s civil rights in the name of “defending democracy”.
Now in Scotland there has been a quiet move towards armed police on patrols and responding to incidents like pub fights or people being drunk and disorderly.
As campaigners for social justice and against police violence, whether on unarmed people, protesters or people in custody, we have to be clear in our total opposition to any arming of the police. It only gives them more power to use excessive violence. We should also go further: the extendable batons (designed to break bones), the tasers and the CS spray should all go. And there is no way they should be allowed to use water cannons.
We don’t want or need more armed police – and the solution to crime and terrorism isn’t a culture of paranoid security and militarisation of the state, as we have seen in the USA. The solution is social policy that tackles the causes of crime, eliminates poverty and ends Britain’s involvement in the war on terror. Let’s fight for that kind of world, before any more innocent people die.
We also need an independent police investigation body that is worth of the name, not the useless and toothless Independent Police Complaints Commission which has a long catalogue of botched investigations and an over-reliance on the very police forces it is meant to be “impartially” investigating. Only when the police feel that they are being properly overseen and scrutinised, and that they could end up in prison for breaking the law, will we begin to see that justice is being done.
9 comments
9 responses to “No to arming the police”
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In 1969 2 police faced justice for killing a man in custody, for the record there’s been 6 accounts of unlawful killing by police, ,4 the CPS have said their wasnt evidence to prosecute, Ian Tomlinsons case, possibly due toLondon coroners court, picking Fred Patel, against police wishes to carry out the autopsy, and finding against others views that Tomlinson died of a heart attack, the jury found it wasn’t manslaughter,
Why mention Mark Duggans death as ,the police having blood on their hands, the jury found he was lawfully killed, as for the other case of a PC having unlawfully killed someone Azelle Rodney the case is on going, and there’s also been 6 PCs killed (5)by black people in the last 30 years’ where no one has been brought to justice
Citing the newham monitoring group as a reliable source for criticism of the IPCC is hardly a reliable one
Good argument Simon. I entirely agree and we need to make this a policy commitment for LU at our next conference. The parts of the community most at risk of being at the sharp end of this escalation in heavy manners policing are the same ones taking the brunt of austerity – the unemployed, agency workers, low waged, black, Muslim, disabled & all those who need to demonstrate. We already have kettling, the civil liberties atrocities meted out by the police to protect frackers at Barton Moss, the unaccountable killing and maiming of protesters and people suspected of offences and, behind all this, the continuing total mismatch between actual crime statisics and public opinion on crime statistics, driven by the media-inspired climate of fear you refer to.
As some of you will know, the IPCC served Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy with a criminal and a gross misconduct notice on Tuesday (12 August) after allegations by a whistleblower, who is a serving police officer (and apparently fairly senior). [This shows the falsehood of the idea that police officers are always our enemies (encapsulated by the anarchist acronym ACAB and held by the SWP to some extent at least), and that we should aim to “split the police” as another Manchester Left Unity member has since said to me.] Despite the very serious allegations and Fahy’s ability to disrupt the investigation if he stays in position, GM Police and Crime Commissioner (and former Labour MP) Tony Lloyd is refusing to suspend Fahy. According to The Guardian, the whistleblower alleged that GMP:
• Allowed a child to enter the home of a suspected sex offender who was under surveillance. This was allegedly covered up.
• Mishandled the disposal of body parts belonging to victims of the serial killer Dr Harold Shipman.
• Allowed armed robbers who were under surveillance to attack a pub instead of stopping them.
Simon mentions the case of Anthony Grainger above, who was arrested and later cleared of stealing a memory stick containing the names of 1075 police informants (amongst other things). It was later discovered that a police officer had taken it home “by mistake” (or at least that was the official story). Despite him being cleared, and being under surveillance (so they surely knew he was unarmed, GMP shot him dead in his car. Anthony’s cousin Wesley Ahmed leads the Justice 4 Grainger campaign (search Facebook or Twitter for #justice4grainger for more information), that I have been involved in. I suggested to Wesley that he set up an e-petition demanding that Tony Lloyd suspends Fahy while he is under investigation (which I helped him with) when I saw a report of the investigation on ITV News. It is at http://tinyurl.com/suspend-Fahy.
Wesley organised a protest at lunchtime the next day at GMP HQ, involving people from seven different campaigns, getting some media coverage – including the BBC local TV news (Northwest Today and Northwest Tonight), a mention in a Guardian article, and a blatant misrepresentation of the protest in the Manchester Evening News (which said we were calling for Fahy’s resignation rather than demanding Lloyd suspend him until the investigation is over).
Whether the IPCC investigation leads to anything, which many of us are doubtful of, it is surely worth exerting pressure, including getting signatures for the e-petition (which also contains Wesley’s information about additional miscarriages of justice and some information about police brutality at the Barton Moss fracking site in Salford, thereby helping open people’s eyes to the nature of the police).
I have also edited a Bambuser stream, that was broadcast live and recorded by a local activist, with his permission. Two Left Unity members, including myself, were interviewed in the video. You can find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPYaZAHnfNM, in which I plug the e-petition at the end of my interview, also displaying it at the end of the video.
It is time for a Left Unity press release on what is happening in Ferguson.
In the article this figure is quoted “2012 poll revealed that 47% of people surveyed wanted police to be routinely armed.” If you carry out some research you will find that most serving police officers do NOT want to be armed. Police officers join the service to protect people and serve there community, unfortunately this places them in dangerous situations where there is a need to be equipped with batons and defensive sprays. Groups of the Left need sometimes to check their own prejudices, my political views are Left, but I do find this black & white thinking tiresome.
We should argue for the complete demilitarisation and disarming of the police. Also any attempt at the militarisation of every day life should be resisted. Sometime ago there was a move, pallid though it was, to instigate a ‘respect/salute the armed forces’ day. That and the beefing up of the territorial army to produce reserve corps(es) of obedient cannon fodder is clearly a move towards creating a more ‘disciplined’ and ‘conformist’ youth rather than tackling the route causes of crime and unemployment. To acheive increased militarisation this government has had to create a number of carefully crafted lies – the biggest ones being the alarmist need for armed special units against the war on terror and the ‘terrorist’ threat. This is in keeping with lies in other areas like the prevalence of non-existent benefit tourists, the strengthening and implementation of inherently racist and xenophobic immigration laws as a populist appeasement of prejudice etc., and the ever present lie that the unemployed, those on disability benefits and trade unions are responsible for the financial crisis caused by investment bankers and speculators.
Apparently in America police forces are killing black people at the rate of two a day with no come back. As Simon’s article points out this trend has been with us for some time now in Britain. Given that there is no opposition in parliament to this government it is down to extra parliamentary opposition to oppose the arming of the police and to bring them to account for their acitvities. LU should be right at the centre of that opposition.
A former senior judge has called for the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill to resign over his “unacceptable conduct”.
The former Solicitor General, Lord McCluskey, said that Mr MacAskill “should not continue to hold office as justice secretary”.
Lord McCluskey (pictured) said in a newspaper article that the use of armed police on routine patrols could result in the “Americanisation” of the police force and described it as the “thin end of the wedge” for the arming of officers across Police Scotland.
He also said the policy change by chief constable Sir Stephen House constituted “secretive decision-making”.
He wrote: “Mr MacAskill says he knew about this decision from the time of the single force’s creation in April last year, but did not share that information and launched no public consultation.
“Here was a policy which could change the face of policing forever, taken behind closed doors, with Sir Stephen privately briefing the minister about a matter which clearly required public debate.”
He added: “Mr MacAskill has claimed – without any clear evidence and flying in the face of opinion polls – that the ‘vast majority’ of Scots support arming of police officers on routine duties. If this policy is to remain in place, urgent public debate is needed.”
Lord McCluskey also criticised Mr MacAskill’s attempts to abolish corroboration – the requirement in Scots criminal law for each crucial fact to be backed by two separate and unique sources.
He said: “This was driven through by Mr MacAskill – despite the legal establishment, including all judges bar one, protesting against it – in another ruthless display of the SNP’s parliamentary clout.
“The truth is that consultation, even when it is sought, is strategically ignored by the present government when it is deemed incompatible with its overall agenda.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Current policy on armed police remains under constant review by Police Scotland.”
We live in a virtually disarmed society so I can see no case whatsoever for the routine arming of the police. We have specialist armed police units which can be brought into action in the rare cases of officers facing an armed suspect. That is surely sufficient. Moreover, if officers were routinely armed then it would become commonplace for officers to be attacked to grab their sidearm, which can only increase the risk to public safety.
Comparisons with Europe or the US are fallacious. The vast majority of European countries have far more liberal gun laws than we do. In France until very recently (Sarkozy abolished it) it was legal to keep a loaded handgun in your house for self defence. No wonder French police are routinely armed! And we all know what the situation is in the US in relation to the availability of firearms.
No, there is simply no case to arm the police routinely and very strong public safety reasons for not.