Searches to Target Ethnic Groups

[Eugenius]

BBC

"We are very sensitive to the effects that that can have and it isn't an attack on particular communities."

I guess they've got to do what they've got to do

[Eugenius]

where is everyone?

[Blu]

Extremists have already started recruiting people of more 'western' appearnace - and have these people not seen 'the battle of Algiers'?

Otherwise, it will be business as usual - people of 'targetted ethnic groups' are already stopped far far more at airports.

[mismatch]

I think the police know what they are doing - its something that has to be done. The extremists would have started recruiting people of more Western appearance anyway, they aren't stupid.

Its unfortunate but necessary.

[motherinferior]

Arrgghhh, 'more western appearance', can't they just say 'white', ffs?

Thought one of the Syrian terrorists had red hair and white skin, anyway. Like more than one part-Asian person, incidentally, like just for one example me.

[triceratops]

I have never been stopped and searched. Is it really that unpleasant? I can see it would get annoying if it was weekly but if that started happening I would think about why I was looking so suspicious (you wouldn't want to get shot by mistake).

[happymerryberries]

I have never been searched anywhere. I have never been pulled over for a customs check, I obviously look far too boring!

dh was pulled over once when we were travelling back from France. He was in our car with the kids and I was in his mothers car driving behind him. He obviously didn't fit the usual holidaym,aker profile.....a single man with two small kids, so they pulled him over. Amazingly he had no alcohol in the car at all!

[wheresmyfroggy]

When i was young i was stopped and searched weekly, The worst thing was you knew everyone that walked past thought you were being arrested even if it was just a search-the dirty looks

[happymerryberries]

Sorry foggy, but at first I read that as 'search the dirty' and thought you were grubby when younger!

[handlemecarefully]

It is unfortunate but necessary imo

[Blu]

DP - Asian, not young, no alarming-looking features at all, is stopped and grilled every bloody time we go through an airport. Everybody looks to see if there is going to be an incident worth craning their necks at.

[mismatch]

It must be annoying for both of you Blu - but if it were white men with blue hair blowing up London then its not surprising that they would be treated with suspicion at airports/station etc.

[tabitha]

I was stopped and searched at Heathrow Airport when I was pregnant with dd1 - don't know what they thought I was hiding in my bump

[piffle]

Not got a lot of faith if they cannot tell a South American man from an Asian man though...

[Eugenius]

I was given a thorough going over at the airport but I felt reassured by it not annoyed

[piffle]

And they did this with everyone who was Irish and over 20 a few years back, my FIL and DP have both suffered quite embarrassing stop and searches of their vehicles and luggage, once resulting in missing a flight to Dubai causing a loss of a job...
Ho hum, but sometimes the ends do justify the means.And anyway Met has been stopping young black men for no reason for the last decade so why they apologise for this in advance I don't know...

[QueenOfQuotes]

I think it's a very dangerous move. Many Ethnic minorities in the UK alreayd feel 'alienated' by the police (rightly or wrongly), and by targetting searches ONLY on them it's not going to do ANYTHING to help community relations IMO.

Also as wheresmyfroggy says - even if you're only stopped and searched in the street, doesn't mean other people don't assume you're being arrested, and even if they let you go the way other people then treat you after seeing you stopped and searched can be quite hurtful.

And, as someone else mentioned if the people behind the attacks see that only black/asian young men are being stopped and searched (which is presumably what they mean) they're just going to find other 'willing' people to "help" them in their cause - whether it's women, older men, whites, people from Eastern European countries where "Islam" (I use the term loosely as it's not the "Islam" that most Muslims practice) is practiced, where the people don't look particularly Asian.

[Gobbledigook]

What do you suggest then?

[QueenOfQuotes]

PIffle - there's also that too - I've looked at several pictures of the Brazillian who was wrongly shot, and in NONE of them can I see how he could have been mistaken easily for an Asian man,

[QueenOfQuotes]

How about doing what someone (can't remember who or find the story) from the police said a week or two ago, implententing stop and search for ALL people, regardless of age or ethnic group.

[Blu]

Spot on Batters and QoQ.

I think they should implement a strategy of searching everyone who enters public buildings - they were doing it at Hampton Court yesterday, and I remember at the height of the some of the IRA campaigns there were searches at every barrier at Waterloo, then random searches, which are genuinely random, and then search ANYONE who appears to be behaving suspiciously in a suicide-bomber type way - (whatever that might be, I'm no expert!).

[piffle]

Yes and checking outgoing passports properly at Eurostar might be useful

If they could do the proper easy searches first I'd be far more in favour of a more "targetted" search, but would prefer everyone to be stopped than some, it would as someone else has just said, prevent an already increasingly alienated ethnic group from further polarisation.

[Gobbledigook]

At Birmingham New Street on Saturday we asked the ticket checkers if we could put our sandwich rubbish in their bin and they made us tip it all out to show what was in it first! Most impressed!

[Blu]

Batters, obvious trouble-maker if ever I saw one!