Brutal Record of Hackney Cops

Scan page 7

WHEN a black woman, Aseta Simms, died in police custody in Hackney in March 1971, many people did not believe the official explanation.

According to the police, Mrs Simms had died of alcohol poisoning. There was swelling and bruising over one eye and on the head, consistent with her having been beaten, but the official story was that she Even the police doctor was not too convinced of the cops' story. The most he could say arguable that some people might die with Hackney blacks demand inquiry into case of Colin Roach, found dead recently outside Stoke Newington police station Iara about tneir treat- their tlat were daubed with ment. Now local cops swastikas and nazi slogans. brought them into Stoke According to the police Newington nick again, this there was no evidence of a time on more serious racist motive to the murder. "The local labour movement and black community should had fallen.

alcohol in their blood stream"

Aseta Simms' death $is the first item in a dossier of police racism and harassment in Hackney compiled by the staff of the Institute of Race Relations. The Dossier does not claim to be exhaustive. Rather, it highlights the incidents most protested about by black people in the locality. They are only a few of many incidents which have shaped the thinking of Hackney blacks.

In July 1975 police raided the Four Aces club in Dalston, looking for thieves, they said. They burst in with dogs, and in the ensuing disturbances arrested 18 black youths. The 'thieves' were, of course, neither found nor pursued any further.

The next year saw one of the most notorious of Hackney police actions. Just after midnight, Mr and Mrs White were woken by police who had entered their home with a warrant to search for stolen stereo equipment.

Mr and Mrs White were beaten, kicked, hit with truncheons and racially abused by the police. They were then arrested for assaulting their attackers! Both needed hospital treatment after the police had released them.

No stolen stereo equipment was found. Once again the charges arose from was: "It is this level of By Newington police station. These friends were questioned for nearly half an hour - as if they were suspects - before police bothered to call for a doctor. By the time the doctor arrived, the unattended 19 year old had bled to death. Police say they did not realise that he' was badly hurt!

Units

Early the next year, five Special Patrol Group units were despatched to Hackney. The criminalisation campaign could now be stepped up.

The local Council for Racial Equality called for the transfer of Hackney's Police Commander Mitchell after he was reported to have said that the National Front 66tha anler matter the uny pall! that spoke up for Britain' In July 1980, Hackney Asian Council called for a policy of non-cooperation with the police.

Later that year, black people protested at the arrest of 18 youths who were held overnight before being released, uncharged.

When in June 1982 scores of Asians attended a ed to instruct some 20 of them to report to the station to prove they weren't illegal immigrants.

Some were held and westioned for up to 30 . ours - including an 85year old grandmother and a nine year old child. Not one of those detained turned out to be an illegal immigrant'.

Two months later came ihe quashing of the murder conviction of Newton Rose. Rose, a Hackney black man, had been convicted in large part on the basis of the 'evidence' presented by Hackney police.

Aware

By this time the community was becoming aware of the case of Mrs Knight and her daughter Jennifer. Mrs Knight and her daughter had been acquitted of the 'disturbing the peace' charges brought against them by the police, and complained to Scotland Vaud almost AFTE setup a tribunal. charges.

As the Caribbean Times reported, "Whilst in police custody, Mrs Knight received injuries to her head; arms, thigh and coccyx, and a cut to her face which required stitching"

Police made over 100 arrests of black youth during the summer of 1982. There was widespread talk of cops threatening to blow your heads off' In January 1983 Mrs Norma Richards and her two young daughters - the only black family on their Hackney estate - were THE ROACH Family Support Committee began with a single demand: 'For an independent public inquiry into the death of Coli Roach', .. To this it has adder another call: for an end to intimidation "and mass arrests' This second demand is & response to police attacks on demonstrators - attacks which boost the cops' campaign to criminalise black youth.

What kind of inquiry would an independent one be? Clearly not one carried out by the coroner _ i.e., an inquest, the only kind of inquiry the police are offering. Still less one carried out by the police themselves. • Remember Deptford!

And the Scarman inquiry into Brixton whitewashed the police, too.

What is the answer? Immediate action by the labour movement and black community, plus demands to wring every democratic right we can from the state.

The local labour movement and black community should set up a tribunal of investigation NOW, and demand full powers to cross-examine the police and to inspect police records.

At the same time we should call for the state to establish an official public inquiry, with legal powers to question the police.

We should call for the investigating committee of this public inquiry to be made up of representatives from the local black community, Council, and labour movement. If an inquiry is set up without such representation, then labour/black community tribunal should monitor its proceedings - demanding full access - and produce its own counterreport.

Every demonstration around the Colin Roach affair has heard the call for the shutting down of the Stoke Newington police station. Other demands have been for the suspension of the Stoke Newington police station officers until an independent- inquiry reports.

Both these demands should be pressed. To refuse to support them on the grounds that this won't solve the problem of the police as a racist force, let alone as an anti working class force, is absurd. It is about, as sensible as refusing to support a wage claim because it won't get rid of exploitation.

To force any of these concessions would be a considerable victory. And the organisation of an inquiry set up by the local black community and labour movement would mark e big step forward in generalising the experience of the black community and making it available to the rest of the working class movement - which, as yet, is still deeply confused about the role of the police.

----- pull-quotes -----

Sunday March 12 ПО0Л Jublice Gardens near Waterloo Station

found murdered. Walls of type of