70 children have reportedly been hospitalised by Met police in the last year, Green Assembly Member Caroline Russell has uncovered.
The children were admitted to A&E following police dog bites and taser injuries and are disproportionately black boys.
Challenged about the hospitalisations in the London Assembly by Caroline Russell today, the Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said, “Statistics don’t imply officers are getting it wrong.”
A report published this week revealed that on 25 October the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, met with the youth work charity Redthread to hear their concerns about the hospitalisations.[1] Caroline questioned Redthread about the hospitalisations to obtain the numbers behind their concern on a visit to St Mary’s hospital yesterday.
Polling shows a third of young Londoners do not trust the Met police, while a recent survey from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime found that only a quarter believe the Met treats everyone fairly, whatever their skin colour or religion.[2]
Caroline Russell AM said:
“Young Londoners shouldn’t fear getting hospitalised by the very people who are supposed to be protecting them.
“The adultification of young Black Londoners in particular needs to end.
“I’ve called for an urgent review into these cases to find out why so many young people are ending up in hospital following interactions with the Met.”
In August of this year the Met paid damages to an innocent 16-year old black Londoner who had a taser gun pressed to his neck, and this month PC Jonathan Broadhead will face a misconduct hearing for tasering a 10-year old girl.
