Investigation promised into Handsworth man’s arrest.
West Midlands Police have strongly refuted claims emerging that a black teenager arrested on suspicion of phone theft was a victim of racial profiling and wrongful arrest. However, they have pledge to investigate the incident, which took place earlier this month.
Shakeil Jackson was arrested by police on the evening of September 6th after a robbery victim and several witnesses claimed he committed a theft in Handsworth. The 19-year-old was taken to Steelhouse Lane police station and held in custody overnight whilst enquiries were made into the allegations. He was released without charge the following morning when it became clear he was not responsible.
Since then a complaint has been made to West Midlands Police about whether Mr Jackson’s arrest was a result of racial profiling and the length of time he was kept in police custody although Shakeil himself has not yet complained to police.
Birmingham West and Central Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Clive Burgess said: “It is extremely disappointing that some people are suggesting ethnicity was a factor. Police officers were responding to witness accounts suggesting Mr Jackson was responsible for the theft. Our enquiries showed this was not the case and we apologise for any inconvenience caused to Mr Jackson. I hope he understands officers were merely acting on information supplied by a victim and witnesses.
CS Burgess added that the police wish to speak to Shakeil in order to establish the nature of his concerns and added, “We take complaints of police conduct very seriously. This matter will be looked into by our Professional Standards Department where a thorough investigation will be conducted.”
“West Midlands Police have strongly refuted claims”
This is the degraded language promoted by politicians and let through by illiterate journalists. The proper meaning of “refute” is not the same as deny or dispute, but rather to SUCCESSFULLY disprove. But of course every politician etc wishes to pretend they have indeed refuted allegations rather than merely denied them. And unfortunately not even Radio 4 presenters have been literate enough to challenge such abuses of the language. I suppose we now have to retreat to “disproved” to have the original meaning, but in due cours abusers of the language will convert “disproved” to merely meaning “deny”. Similar modern abuse of the word “marriage” which has meant the same thing since long before anyone could even read or write. If people want to be modern with some new institution of homosexual partnership, then why not also use a modern word for it too, such as “pairage”? Oh but No, the problem is that far to many people nowadays are content to live in historical blinkers, in which nothing of any importance predates the invention of facebook and twitter.
And I really wish the letter “aitch” could go back to being pronounced as “aitch” and not “haitch”. We live in an age of word abuse. I like your suggestion of the word “pairage”. That’s how my shoes refer to themselves.
Sure but that’s nothing compared to how the Americans pronounce “erbs” (the natural medicine things).
Turning to the subject of the article, I think the police are right to dismiss this allegation as even if there is such alleged bias it can’t be proved in respect of a specific case but only possibily in terms of statstics from many cases.
How about seeing the end of sexism manifested in so few women being imprisoned and twelve times as many men.