UK’s Met police facing probe into racist views on minorities
Britain’s biggest police force, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), is facing an investigation into reports that its officers posted a series of racist messages about ethnic minorities on Facebook.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Metropolitan Police Service, informally known as the Met, said that its internal watchdog, the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS), had been conducting a probe for three months into comments made on the “I’ve Met the Met” Facebook group.
“We can confirm that concerns were raised in April 2015,” the statement said, adding, “The group administrators have set the privacy settings as ‘secret’ but we understand it to include former and serving MPS officers among its members.”
The statement further said that the investigation into the case is seeking to determine whether police officers have committed any acts of misconduct or criminal offense regarding the Facebook comments.
The Facebook group, which has approximately 3,000 participants, cannot be viewed by the public as it is managed on an invite-only basis.
Yvonne MacNamara, the chief executive of the Traveller Movement charity, described the Facebook remarks as “shocking,” saying that the fact that the comments are made by “police officers gives us no confidence at all in the Metropolitan Police’s ability to both police these communities and to attract and protect its own staff who are from gypsy and traveller backgrounds.”
Jim Davies, the chair of the Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association (GRTPA), a support network for police personnel who are from these backgrounds, also noted that “racism towards Gypsies and Travellers is endemic and is part of police culture.”
Back in June, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the head of the Metropolitan police, admitted in a BBC One documentary that there is “some justification” to allegations that the police force is “institutionally racist.”
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