The head of London’s Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, said on Sunday that it is “shameful” that there are more black teens being killed in the British capital city than white boys.
In an interview with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips, who previously served as former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Racial Equality, Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley said:
“It’s not right that black boys growing up in London are more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18, far more likely than than white boys.”
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he added.
According to statistics published by the London Assembly in 2022, black Londoners are heavily overrepresented in knife crime. Despite only making up around 13 per cent of the city’s population, black Londoners account for 45 per cent of knife crime murder victims.
However, they are also vastly overrepresented in those who commit such crimes, with black Londoners accounting for 61 per cent of knife murderers and being responsible for 53 per cent of knife crimes in general.
In addition to discussing the increased likelihood of black teens falling victim to knife crime, Sir Mark also lamented the “history between policing and black communities, where policing has got a lot wrong.”
Rowley continued: “And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be… But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement in 2022 to take the job of Britain’s most senior police officer, has previously faced criticism for dodging questions on whether there is “two-tier” policing in Britain.
In August of last year, the Met Police chief infamously grabbed the microphone of a journalist and threw it to the ground as he stormed off after being asked, “Are we going to end two-tier policing, sir?”.
The incident came amid widespread anti-mass migration riots in the wake of the Southport mass stabbing, in which a black teen of Rwandan heritage, Axel Rudakubana, stabbed three young girls to death and injured ten others at a Taylor Swift dance party.
The government and police forces took a hardline approach to the ensuing riots and protests, even jailing some who merely made posts on social media. This drew comparisons to the relatively light touch by police towards Muslim community riots, which took place just weeks prior.
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