Responding to the release today (Tuesday 21 March) of the Baroness Casey review into the Metropolitan police force, Black Equity Organisation (BEO) interim CEO Timi Okuwa said:
Baroness Casey’s report is a damning indictment of the Met Police, a force that is failing on every level.
She is very clear – the Met is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. So it is extremely disappointing to hear Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley refuse to accept these issues ARE institutional.
This denial completely undermines his claim to have truly accepted the essence of the report and makes it almost impossible for us to trust that anything will change.
Successive reports – from Scarman and Macpherson to Lammy – have called on the Met to address the deep-rooted systemic issues at its heart.
For Black Londoners who, as Baroness Casey lays bare in her report, have been “over-policed and under-protected” reform of the Met can be a matter of life or death.
As well as accepting and implementing the 16 Casey recommendations and delivering a timetable for change, BEO is calling for Black people, alongside women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, to have a seat at the table as part of the reforms.
This will ensure accountability for real systemic policing changes for the long term. This should include a robust, independent approach for longer-term changes in legislation and policy and full, evidence-based implementation and oversight.
While this report focuses on the Met, we also call for police forces across the country to face the same level of scrutiny and accountability.
