Brixton will host a meeting to discuss the recent devastating report on the culture of the Metropolitan police.
Baroness Louise Casey’s initial views, sent to the new Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, confirm what critics of the force have been saying for decades.
The Karibu Centre at 7 Gresham Road will host the event on Monday (24 October) at 6pm. It is sponsored by a range of campaigns and police monitoring groups.
Organisers say that public confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service is at an all-time low, and at its very lowest in Lambeth.
“Such are the concerns that a range of key black national institutions and networks are coming together in an unprecedented alliance to evaluate assess and identify the detail of the damning Baroness Louise Casey Review into the culture of the Metropolitan Police Service,” they said.
The Brixton meeting will consider the response of Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, and what should be the response to the report’s devastating findings from London mayor Sadiq Khan, London councils and local communities.
Speakers will include the editor of the Voice newspaper and members of local community.
Lambeth council will be represented by Cllr Mahamed Hashi, cabinet member for community safety.
“These criticisms have been consistently expressed by myself and others at a local level here in Lambeth and across the capital,” said Lee Jasper, chair of the Alliance for Police Accountability Project Steering Group.
These criticisms “have been routinely ignored, denied or dismissed by the Met and other accountable bodies who have chosen to stay silent or who have been complicit in maintaining the status quo of a toxic culture that is highlighted in this interim report,” he said.
“To suggest that the Casey reviews findings were ‘a surprise’ or that senior officers at Scotland Yard or here in Lambeth were ‘unaware’ of these critical issues is, in truth, wholly disingenuous and frankly insulting to our communities.
“These issues have been raised consistently here in Lambeth and across the capital by communities, the media and police professional bodies over the last decade.
“The growing levels of genuine anger, deep anxiety and heightened concerns among London’s and Lambeth’s Black communities are the highest I have ever known in 40 years as a community advocate.”
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