Greater Manchester police chief denies racism claim

THE CHIEF of one of England’s biggest police forces has rejected the claim that the force is “institutionally racist”, despite recent findings that its officers are more than two times more likely to stop and search south Asian people than their white counterparts, reports said.

Reacting to Achieving Race Equality- 2021 report and its one of the panellist’s comments that the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is "racist", its chief constable Stephen Watson rejected the claim saying that anyone who “behaves in a racist way” gets "booted out" of the force.

“Do I think GMP is institutionally racist? My answer would be no, I don’t think that,” Watson said.

“I do not for one second deny that in an organisation which is the thick end of 12,000 people-strong, we may actually find ourselves from time to time employing somebody who behaves in a racist way, who commits offences,” he said, insisting that when such officers were unmasked, “we root them out, and we boot them out”.

“I do not accept that GMP is institutionally racist, but I do accept that a lot of people think we are. And their view is really important because they are the folks that we serve, and so we have to address those concerns head-on,” The Guardian quoted in a report on Tuesday (27).

His comments followed GMP's report that came on the same day, stating that black people were four times more likely to have force used against them than their white counterparts. The report also stated that south Asian communities in Greater Manchester are also 2.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white Britons.

The report, commissioned by the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, also found that black and minority ethnic people are underrepresented in the force.

Elizabeth Cameron, the chair of the Greater Manchester Race Equality panel, has said earlier that “institutional racism” exists in GMP.

Citing the finding in the report that “officers were more likely to refer to the physique of black people when justifying a decision to use force against them”, Cameron said this showed some members of the force were relying on "racist tropes".

"It lends itself towards what I call the institutional racism that exists, and it's undeniable,” she said.

"Probably every black person from those communities has some form of video on their phone right now that they could show of community members who have been unfairly jostled by the police, aggressively treated," she added.