Our statement on recent police actions in Croydon
Last week, a Black woman and her child in our community were victims of an unjustifiable and disproportionate act of violence at the hands of the Met Police. The week before, a young Black man died following police detainment in Croydon.
We want to express our solidarity with the mother who was aggressively mistreated and arrested by 2 police officers on Whitehorse Road last Friday after being wrongly accused of evading her bus fare, and to her young son who had to watch his mother be grabbed and handcuffed by uniformed strangers. We also stand in solidarity with the family, friends and community of the unnamed 30 year old Black man who died following detainment in police custody.
Whilst we are deeply saddened and angered, we are not surprised. Police brutality, deaths at the hands of the state, racial profiling and a lack of accountability are not new. Croydon’s Police force have talked about change, building trust, and improving their reputation in our community. Last week’s actions have shown that they are incapable of that.
It is impossible for the police to repair their reputation when officers from this same force use language like ‘daft cow’ and ‘aggressive’ to describe a Black mother they have unlawfully arrested and fail to communicate with the public in a timely, appropriate way about the death in custody of a young Black man. There has been no apology for police behaviour. Do these sound like the actions of an institution designed to keep us safe?
Resources are wasted on falsely accusing mums on the school run of evading £1.75 bus fares during a cost of living crisis, instead of being used to support a local community continually under threat from a punitive and aggressive state.
We believe that the time for the police’s false promises to make change and build trust in Croydon is over. Things can only begin to improve through reducing police powers and building community care and support. We refuse to sit by and allow police power to go unchallenged and unaccountable. We refuse to allow members of our community to be bullied and intimidated. We refuse to hear empty promises with no signs of change.
We are calling on local Croydon people and groups to reach out and come together to build our power collectively and demand:
A permanent end to all fare evasion operations in the Borough of Croydon and beyond
A public apology to the mother and her child
The immediate suspension of the arresting officers
Greater transparency with the community following serious incidents.
We know that this won’t undo the damage the police have caused. However, we believe that they provide an opportunity to centre community care in our borough instead of police inflicted harm.