In Britain too police custody can be a dangerous place, especially if you happen to be black.
In Britain too police custody can be a dangerous place, especially if you happen to be black
The man being choked by the police in the video is Eric Garner. His last words were “I can’t breathe!”. He died shortly after this video was filmed.
Astonishingly, a grand jury decided not to indict any of the police officers involved in Garner’s death. As a result, protests have erupted in New York and elsewhere demanding change as the brutal passing of yet another black man at the hands of the police looks like it will go unpunished.
There is a grim familiarity to events like this. For many of us Garner’s death once again provides an opportunity to shake our heads and tut at America’s failure to tackle one of the most glaring inequalities between white and black – the likelihood of being killed by the very people that are there to offer protection.
Some will of course describe the killing of Garner as ‘unfortunate’ or the result of a ‘few bad apples’, but the statistics tell a different story. According to FBI data, those killed by police in the US are disproportionately black.
(ht Vox).
Other forms of oppression also persist. While African-Americans make up 13.1 per cent of the US population, they constitute nearly 40 per cent of the prison population. Many are arrested for drug offences. Despite African-Americans using or selling drugs at the same rate as whites, they remain 2.8 to 5.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug offences than whites.
The mistake, however, is to interpret this as a uniquely American phenomenon. Indeed, the US may come in for the most criticism when it comes to deaths of non-white people in police custody, but in this country we have little reason to be smug: it’s a problem here too.
In Britain 827 people have died during or following police contact since 2004. According to Inquest, a charity that monitors deaths in police custody, a disproportionate number of those who have died in or shortly after being taken into police custody following the use of force were from black and minority ethnic communities (BAME).
| Total BAME deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police, England & Wales 1990-date | ||||
| Type | Metropolitan Police | Other Forces | Total | |
| Custody | 76 | 61 | 137 | |
| Shooting | 7 | 2 | 9 | |
| All custody and shooting deaths | 83 | 64 | 147 | |
Source: INQUEST casework and monitoring
And while it looks like no police offers will be held to account for Eric Garner’s tragic death, there hasn’t been a successful prosecution of a police officer implicated in the death of anyone in Britain since 1969, despite, since 1990, there being nine unlawful killing verdicts returned by juries at inquests into deaths involving the police and one unlawful killing verdict recorded by a public inquiry.
In other words, it’s easy to sneer at the violence and structural racism apparent in American society and write it off as some sort of American exceptionalism. America is after all vastly economically unequal, has a history of discriminating against minorities and has a tooled up police force.
All true of course, but we ought also to look closer to home before rushing to pass judgement: in Britain too police custody can be a dangerous place, especially if you happen to have the ‘wrong’ skin colour.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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28 Responses to “Eric Garner’s death is a tragedy – but it isn’t just American tragedy”
damon
This discussion can’t get a fair hearing, because most people come to it with prejudiced baggage from the start. From both sides.
What’s the bottom line here – that police are racists? That white people are racists?
Who is to ”police” the streets if not the police? I remember what Railton Road in Brixton was like in the 1980s – The Front line it was called. Can you imagine how hard it was to police there? If you sent two police down to an incident they could get beaten up, and if you sent a van load it could cause a riot.
Are people saying that police shouldn’t lay their hands on people who resist being manhandled? That would be a consequence of what the OP here seems to be suggesting.
The people who marched on Tottenham police station after Mark Duggan was killed, caused the riots in which others were killed and many people were hurt. Whether the policeman who fired the fatal shot at Mark Duggan did the right thing or not is not really the point. When firearms are involved, people can be killed, and Duggan was chancing his life with the lifestyle he was living. Its the same all over the world when police carry guns.
I don’t have a problem with someone saying the police can be too macho.
They can be. I saw loads of them in Parliament Square on November the 5th and they were all dressed up in their action gear, probably hoping for a bit of drama.
But I doubt that many of them are capable of racist murder, which is what some of the ”No justice – No peace” brigade imply.
These American cops in New York look terribly complacent though.
I’d say they just need better training.
swat
Black Youth must change its ‘attitude’ to Authority if we are to make any progress in this matter. Its their reactiomn to being stopped that is the problem, and gets them into more trouble than they bargained for. Police are in a very difficult situation. Those thehy apprehend are on the whole villans, not meek old ladies who just want to cross the road. The presumption must be that the person you stop is going to ‘lose it’ and attack you viciously; thats what the police must fear all the time.
Michael Simpson
Your comment has a long, racist lineage. Allusions to black criminality was also the prop used to ignore lynching in the American south.
damon
I still remember the names of some of these London teenagers killed in 2007.
I don’t think one of was killed by a white person.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7117749.stm
It’s that what the police are up against.
I’d be interested to hear about how they should go about things differently, as they try to keep the numbers of these victims down.
TN
The fact this ignorant comment has even one up vote just shows what kind of people read this blog.