One of Britain's leading black police officers is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed.
In a speech that will reignite one of the most contentious issues in British policing, the president of the National Black Police Association will dramatically call for an increase in the policing strategy in black communities. It marks a U-turn by the association, which has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched by police.
Speaking at the group's annual conference, Keith Jarrett will ask Police Minister Tony McNulty and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider escalating stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the number of shootings that have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.The disputed use of stop-and-search has arguably caused more conflict than any other modern policing tactic and first achieved national notoriety during the Eighties, when it was blamed for precipitating inner-city race riots. Black people are four times more likely to be stopped than white people, according to Scotland Yard's figures, which continues to give rise to charges of police racism.
