Following the Not Guilty verdict in the case against the police officer whose taser use caused life-changing injuries to Jordan Walker-Brown in May 2020, Leader of Haringey Council, Cllr Peray Ahmet has issued the following statement:
“We remain convinced that this incident should never have happened, and that action and leadership are needed from the police to ensure that no young person in Haringey has to experience what Jordan went through.
“As a council we are committed to building a borough where everyone feels safe and secure. To achieve this, we need a police service which we and our residents can be confident to work with.
“Incidents such as this are one of the reasons why confidence in the police is so low among our residents, especially members of our Black communities who disproportionately experience heavy-handed police tactics.
“In March we called on the Met to implement in full the findings of Baroness Casey’s review, and we reiterate this call today. We will continue to engage with the police and challenge them to prevent incidents like this from happening in future.
“It remains clear that we need root and branch reform of the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that it employs officers of integrity who care about and are rooted in the communities they serve, and that the right processes are in place to ensure that force is only used when necessary to protect others from harm.
“This case also shows the dangers that tasers pose and raises questions about the Met’s plans for rolling out more of these devices to frontline officers. We will continue to engage with police leadership on this issue to protect the safety of our residents, especially people of colour who are disproportionately likely to be victims of tasering.”
