Oh, I Think We 'Get It', Ex-Ch Supt Dal Babu...

One of Britain's top ethnic minority police officers has accused chief constables of not understanding the need for more black and Asian recruits.

Ch Supt Dal Babu told BBC News many of his colleagues just "don't get it". Ch Supt Babu, 49, who retires from the Metropolitan Police on Monday after 30 years' service, said "radical measures" were needed so police had a better understanding of different cultures.

Oh, really? Such as..?

Ch Supt Babu - who is of Indian heritage and helped found the National Association of Muslim Police - said there was a "business case" as well as "moral" reasons for raising numbers, particularly in specialist units.

He said: "It's about having that cultural understanding when you're planning the firearms operation - do you understand the cultural aspects that might be misinterpreted as being aggression within a particular community?"

I... What?

I'm sorry. I zoned out there for a minute..

 "But guv, 'ave we considered the cultural aspects of our aggress.."

"Shut it, George!"

"Do you understand when communities are praying on a particular day?"

Well, good god, Dal ol' chum, they sure ought to, given the appalling amounts of time and money spent on such things! The fact that they don't let that change what they have to do (they don't, do they?) is a good thing, not a black mark against them!

Sir Peter Fahy, who leads on workforce development for the Association of Chief Police Officers, denied chief constables were to blame, saying they had been left "frustrated" in their attempts to recruit more ethnic minority officers by existing employment law.

Sir Peter said: "We need a wider interpretation of the definition of 'occupational requirement'," adding that currently, if chief constables wanted to recruit officers who had an understanding of a particular national or ethnic group, they had to "dance on a legal pinhead" to do so.

As I should bloody well hope, too!

So...why is he the ex-Ch Supt Dal Babu..? According to the 'Guardian' article, he left under a bit of a cloud:

Babu was turned down for a place on the strategic command course in 2011 and he chose to retire.

Ah. It seems he wasn't up to snuff, despite his impressive paper qualifications, then?

...but was considered unsuitable to assume chief officer rank because his media interview skills were not deemed good enough.

Ouch! In a police farce that includes such luminaries as Sue Simm, who presumably was found good enough, that must be bad...

His personal file – which he has seen – contains the comments: "This officer is over-racially sensitive".

*shocked face*

The 'Guardian' Always Knows Who Is Most Affected

Police are being forced to disclose the ethnicity of suspects in response to a rise in far-right speculation on social media, a former senior officer in the Metropolitan police force has warned.

And it is, of course, the usual suspects. 

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent (Ed:and inveterate race-baiter) in the UK’s biggest force, said police having to disclose the race of suspects in incidents involving people of colour was an “unintended consequence”. “When the new guidance was issued, I warned that there was a danger that there will be an expectation for police to release information on every single occasion,” he said. “I have sympathy for my former colleagues in the police. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They are under pressure because there is such intense speculation from the far right on social media after every major incident about the background of suspects.

I think the intense speculation comes from everyone, not just the tiny amount of genuinely right wing accounts! 

“You will not find pressure on social media to name the ethnicity of suspects when black players are being racially abused on social media, for example. We are in a position in our country where race is being amplified by far-right racist groups and the police are being forced to respond. It is a worry.”

Strange to put a train rampage by a knife wielding maniac injuring 11 people, some critically, on the same level of public interest as someone making monkey chants at a football game, but you do you, Dal… 

Even after police revealed that the two arrested suspects were British nationals, attempts were made to suggest that information was being withheld.

Gosh, I wonder why people just don’t trust police statements any more? 

Habib compared the statement on Sunday morning by a senior police officer, who had described both suspects as British, to official statements identifying the Southport murderer as a Welshman. It was “possible” that the suspects were British but, he said, adding that the police had not released their names, “I will remain extremely suspicious until we get chapter and verse.”

Oh, right. I remember why, now! 

Is It 'Cos I Is White?

Yesterday while sitting down to a nice curry at teatime, I nearly choked on a poppadum when Dal Babu was asked on BBC News to comment on the case of a man wrongly Tasered by police who'd smashed down the door of the wrong house:

A pensioner who was tasered by armed officers after they allegedly raided the wrong home has said he feared being shot and killed in his dining room by “police thugs full of testosterone”. Roy Morton, an 80-year-old former ballet dancer, was woken by the sound of police “smashing down” his front door in Cricklewood, northwest London, at about 7am on Tuesday last week.

Surprisingly, instead of thundering about "the cultural aspects that might be misinterpreted as being aggression within a particular community" or wondering if police 'would have dealt with this differently', he was quite non-committal, declaring that there was an ongoing investigation and everyone should wait for the outcome of that. It was such a bland statement I wondered why they bothered to get him on the line for a quote at all.  

The interview isn't available on the BBC to link to. In fact, you won't find this case mentioned at all this morning.

I wonder why?

Gosh. It's a mystery, isn't it?

Left Hand, Right Hand...

Chief Superintendent Dal Babu, spokesman for the Association of Muslim Police, said officers, particularly in London, should reflect the communities they served, as it emerged that not one candidate on the latest Strategic Command Course — which qualifies police officers for senior chief officer ranks — is from a black or ethnic minority background.

Sure they must. So long as they don't reflect the body-building community, I suppose?

Dozens of police officers are being investigated over their use of anabolic steroids supplied by criminals in gyms, an anti-corruption report has revealed. It warns that the many officers who use drugs to boost their strength risk corruption if they depend on dealers.

I don't quite know why they are so worried - it isn't as if their colleagues don't know just how to deal with body-builders who go berserk, after all...

Three Little Pigs Huff And Puff, For A Change...

Three former police chiefs have said errors made in the search for two missing sisters was the result of bias, as the murdered women’s mother dismissed as “hollow” an apology for the blunders.

Oh? And who are the three? 

Sue Fish, the former chief constable of Nottinghamshire, said on Tuesday that bias had been a factor: “I see plenty of bias. The IOPC report gives licence to continue to fail people of colour, and women of colour, into the future.”

“It does not have a finding of racism, it addresses things in performance terms and misses this everyday casual unconscious bias against people of colour and women.”

Ah, a long-serving ACPO mouthpiece  

Former Met chief superintendent Dal Babu said the mother of the murdered sisters was right in insisting bias was a factor: “If this had been a white, middle class social worker, would police have dealt with it differently. I’m convinced they would have.”

Oh, a typical uniformed race-hustler  

Former Met chief superintendent Victor Olisa, a former head of diversity at the force, said: “I think there is bias, I know the investigation of missing persons is not as professional as it ought to be.

“There is bias, the IOPC can’t find it.”

Oh, a former cop tasked with finding bias, who can find it anywhere it seems, even when he's no longer being paid to do so.