Society
A false messenger
Published 01 November 2007
A return to random stop-and-search of young blacks in the inner cities will throw our communities into violent disorder
I attended the funeral of a teenager, Nathan Foster, on Friday 26 October. The police were a long time in releasing the corpse. Nathan was shot some months ago in Brixton, a spit away from where Mrs Howe and I lived with our bairns for nigh on 30 years.
Close to a thousand Brixtonians spanning the generations joined the family in sending Nathan on his way. There was little or no acrimony, even though the circumstances of his death could easily have triggered off such sentiments. There was not even a hint of revenge for a life pointlessly lost in the frenzy of gun crime. The youths sang arias and eulogised in the spirit of forgiveness, while the police maintained a discreet distance from this dignified body of black Caribbeans.
Keith Jarrett, who has announced himself as a community leader from his platform as president of the National Black Police Association, was not in attendance, even though he claimed to represent us in his clarion call for the return of random stop-and-search of young blacks.
And what a pity he stayed away. It was an ideal audience for testing his position that the community is overwhelmingly in favour of stop-and-search - which was what triggered the explosion of black anger on the streets of Brixton 26 years ago. A show of hands at that funeral would have condemned Jarrett to oblivion.
This is Brixton, remember. In April 1981 the Metropolitan Police launched Operation Swamp on the very streets where Nathan Foster was born a generation later. His father, grandfather, uncles, the whole male Foster clan and others hurled themselves against the police to bring this oppressive behaviour to an end.
It did more than that, though. The revolt sowed the seeds for the introduction of black officers into the Metropolitan Police and elsewhere. Jarrett got a job as a black police officer on the back of that revolt. The agitation over Stephen Lawrence led to the Macpherson report, which inspired the formation of groups that coalesced into the National Black Police Association. And Jarrett got a post as president.
Even the black officers at the funeral expressed hostility to Jarrett's clarion call when I asked for their opinion. I could find no one who stood for the reintroduction of such a menace into our communities.
In fact, I do not believe Jarrett's claims that he was besieged by blacks to impress upon police chiefs the necessity of returning to the dark and oppressive days of stop-and-search.
Jarrett seeks to convince us that he is simply a messenger conveying the views of the overwhelming majority of blacks whom he met at functions celebrating Black History Month. I, too, attended these functions and have spoken to others who did: no one remembers the groundswell of opinion Jarrett describes.
In fact, not even police officers currently patrolling the streets of central London share Jarrett's reactionary view. Detective Inspector David Michael, former president of the NBPA, rounded on Jarrett. So did Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei, who commands an entire borough within the Met. Jarrett's members have disowned him.
On an issue of such importance I fail to grasp why Jarrett did not consult either his executive or the individual policemen who formed and shaped his organisation before speaking. There is even the suggestion that Jarrett is testing the black community's mood on behalf of those who want to extend this law, that now only relates to suspected terrorists, to cover everyone.
A return to random stop-and-search of young blacks in the inner cities will throw our communities into violent disorder. I know because I live there.
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