 When a vigil to remember Sarah Everard ended in police wrestling women to the ground the public response was one of outrage The scenes were particularly unpleasant because of the relationship of the police to Sarah Everard's death The man suspected of her murder is himself a Met officer What's worse the Met had been informed of allegations of sexual harassment by the suspect before Everard's murder And it appears they had failed to act Now in response to the controversy Pretty Patel requested that her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, quite a mouthful, investigate the incident and on Tuesday They reported that the Met did nothing wrong These were their conclusions After reviewing hundreds of documents body-worn video from police officers at the vigil and other media and conducting interviews with the police, vigil organisers and politicians The Inspectorate found that police officers at the vigil did their best to peacefully disperse the crowd Police officers remained calm and professional when subjected to abuse And police officers did not act inappropriately or in a heavy-handed manner However, HMICFRS also found there was insufficient communication between police commanders about changing events on the ground The Inspectorate said that public confidence in the Metropolitan Police suffered as a result of the vigil And that given the impact of images of women under arrest, which were widely disseminated on social media A more conciliatory response after the event might have served the Met's interests better So essentially they're saying the police did a great job They could have handled it slightly better on social media afterwards Because people ended up thinking they'd done a bad job So they're saying the policing was excellent, all that wrestling of women to the ground, that was fine But you should have been more proactive in terms of defending yourself on Twitter afterwards Now, of course, the key part there, the big takeaway was the comment Police officers did not act inappropriately or in a heavy-handed manner Now let's remind ourselves of the scenes we saw that night She got their young women getting dragged away by police when they're just standing very peacefully At a vigil next to flowers that have been laid to remember someone who was tragically murdered There is a long, long history of the police and of state institutions Who are supposed to do impartial investigations of the police Whether it's the inspector or the IOPC, previously known as the IPCC Investigating the police either through sort of regular reviews Or through, you know, being the people who, being the institution that people go to With complaints about police conduct And finding that the police did nothing wrong And failing to hold the police account or failing to connect these outcomes of violence or of Oppression to structural issues within and of the police Every, you know, every prosecution of a death in police custody over the past 15 years Has ended in acquittal and found that the police did nothing wrong We recently had Alice O'Keefe who is one, I think she's part of the inspector or has some kind of role And was involved in the delivery of a report that was, you know, released this month On protest and on the policing of protest and she said that in her experience of being within that institution The police showed repeat the inspector. It showed repeated bias in favor of the police and against peaceful protesters And she said this really interesting thing where she said Quote the purpose of the report was not to collect evidence and then make a decision But rather to collect evidence to support the decision that had already been made And that's all done within the context of the home secretary looking for, you know Trying to create the context in which she can more easily pass things like the policing bill And look at the policing crime bill So what that tells us is that the outcomes of policing that we're seeing of of dead people and cells Of black and brown people being stopped and searched and surveilled of protesters being physically beaten of You know people with mental health issues who come from working class or black or brown backgrounds Being treated with, you know, carceral and you know punishment based Responses rather than care, but this is not some, you know, heat of the moment response by police Or some kind of deviation from protocol But it is according to the police themselves or at least the bodies that are meant to investigate the police The cell it is protocol And it might not be protocol that's you know written down anywhere But it's protocol that has emerged through repeatedly taking place and repeatedly being sanctioned And you know, obviously it goes without saying that this is not the first time that, you know An investigation has been done into the police Particularly, you know, when it comes to to police responses to protesters or political dissent The lines here, you know, the scenes of police throwing women, you know, women to the ground It's much more clearer because it's you know To many people or perceived to be a much more shocking image than the police doing the same thing for, you know Black and brown teenagers But that tactic of inflicting harm as in the case of sarah everard allegedly Using violence against protesters who are protesting the police, especially who are protesting the police Um is a well known textbook thing. Um, we saw it in for example Mark dougan and how protests and attempts to organize in the wake of mark dougan's death Um was itself criminalized So or itself faced extreme responses from the police So it's a well hash technique and I think we need to stop thinking about this in terms of Oh, the you know, the the investigation has made a mistake here But rather that as this keeps happening It tells us something about the fact that the police Genuinely do see this as part of our of its role and then see from that position Where do we go from there in our analysis of who the police serve and of what the police do? I mean, I think it's very convincing that idea that this report was written not to find out whether the police had Done anything wrong, but rather to look at what evidence can we use to justify what they've done So they they decided the conclusion before they they started and what they wanted to do was defend the police now Some of this interest of some of this often said it's often true is that attack Is the best form of defense and I think this report also drew upon that particular Dictum and because they did go on the attack against anyone who had a different opinion to them They said the police did a great job and they're attacking anyone who disagreed at the time So this is is from that report They write the inspectors write the inspectorate Right the chorus of those condemning the metropolitan police and calling for the resignation of the commissioner within hours of the arrest And presumably with a very limited understanding of what had happened was unwarranted Whereas a certain degree of uninformed commentary, particularly on social media is inevitable In this case some of the leading voices were those impositions of some responsibility It is one thing as in the case of the home secretary to recognize that the scenes were worrying or upsetting And to order an inspection such as this it is another to jump to conclusions And in doing so undermine public confidence in policing based on very limited evidence Now that's quite clearly a reference to sadeek khan who tweeted and made a public statement at the time that he wasn't impressed by the police's actions And their explanations to him had been unsatisfactory Also, probably a reference to ed david the lib dem leader. He called for crested a dick To resign she's of course the the met commissioner the head of the met Now this is super interesting because not only are we in a situation whereby You have an organization which tends to just whitewash whatever the police do So it's an organization the police can generally rely on to say what you've done is fine They want to delegitimize anyone else who comes to a different conclusion So even though we've all seen the videos of young women getting pushed over in an incredibly heavy handed way by the police And in a very insensitive way given the reason of why people were protesting They're saying to even have an opinion on that is itself Something to be condemned So saying politics politicians should not be able to make their minds up about police activity It should be completely depoliticized It should be put in the hands of a commission who low and behold tend to say that everything the police did was actually right