Just before the UK’s May bank holiday weekend, at the height of lockdown, two events occurred which provided us with an almost real-time illustration of the disproportionate risk of encountering the police and being subjected to a use of force if you are Black than if you are white.
Starting first with a street party being held in the Cheshire town of Warrington in full view of BBC News cameras to celebrate VE day. It saw people, who appear to all be white, engaging in a “socially-distanced” conga, holding onto a long rope. No police officers can be seen and the happy party was able to continue without interruption. Despite the footage clearly showing a prima facie breach of the legal restrictions on gathering in groups and some apparent concern by others about the risk of covid-transmission, there was no hint that attendees would be fined for breaching the Lockdown Regulations.
Zooming out and moving only a few miles North to Stretford, near Manchester and we are confronted with a very different scenario – also caught on film. A Black man called Desmond Ziggy Mombeyarar is being questioned by two white police officers, it transpires, for driving offences and a breach of the Lockdown Regulations. It is not clear from the footage why he is then suddenly tasered, within arms-reach of his five-year-old son. The little boy can be heard screaming “daddy!” and crying hysterically at the site of his father incapacitated on the forecourt of the petrol station.
