No taking the knee, Met chief tells officers
Dame Cressida Dick, the Met Police Commissioner, has told officers not to “take the knee” in support of Black Lives Matter. After defending two officers who adopted the pose during protests outside Downing Street and in Whitehall, she yesterday told LBC that in subsequent briefings she ordered police to no longer kneel while on duty. The move has led to controversy as officers in some forces have been told they should be prepared to take the knee if it might defuse a situation.
POLICE officers have been told by Scotland Yard’s head not to “take the knee” in support of Black Lives Matter.
Dame Cressida Dick defended two officers who adopted the pose during protests in Whitehall and outside Downing Street, but in subsequent briefings she ordered officers to no longer kneel while on duty, she revealed. “That evening, I said we are not going to do that in a public-order or operational situation, and every briefing after that for the protests included ‘we will not be taking the knee’,” Dame Cressida told LBC yesterday.
Taking the knee was taken up as a symbolic anti-racist gesture by the Black Lives Matter campaign after the death of George Floyd, when a police officer restraining him knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
It has led to controversy as officers in some forces have been told they should be prepared to take the knee if it might defuse a situation.
An operational briefing by Hertfordshire Constabulary warned that those who chose not to make the solidarity gesture “may become the focus of the protesters’ attention”.
It pointed out that, when officers knelt down, it had “a very positive reaction on the protest groups”.
Dame Cressida said she understood why her two officers in June knelt after enduring a long day policing the protests and a crowd saying “again and again and again ‘take the knee, take the knee, take the knee’”.
“I haven’t spoken to them personally but I imagine that they thought in order to keep that bit of the crowd a bit quieter and to show some respect and humility, some respect for what had happened to George Floyd, they took the knee,” she said.
Although she had ruled it inappropriate in operations, she accepted the decision of Alan Pughsley, Kent Chief Constable, to take the knee at a demonstration involving Caribbean and equality campaigners was a “completely different situation. It was not a public order or operational situation”.
However, she said she would not do it herself. “You can see, racing drivers, goodness knows who, footballers, people are taking the knee for all sorts of reasons. I wouldn’t. I’m a professional police officer and I don’t think we should in operational duties,” she said.
She was backed by Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who told The Daily Telegraph that he did not believe an officer should make such a gesture while in uniform.
“People are entitled to personal views but you should keep them outside policing. When you have a police uniform on, you should police without fear or favour,” he said. However, a spokesman for Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, said: “It’s clearly a personal decision for each officer, but the mayor supports their decision to do so, as long it is safe and operationally appropriate for them to do so.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “It’s a decision for individual forces and chiefs.”
‘It’s clearly a personal decision for each officer’