Another day, another hashtag, it seems. This time around, it’s a lot closer to home for UK folks with the death of former Aston Villa striker Dalian Atkinson. The 48 year-old was tasered by police outside his father’s home in Telford. It’s yet another death at the hands of British police, and with no convictions against police at present, there's a strong likelihood that no action will be brought against the officers involved. However, at this turning point and in the advent of a new age of black British activism, there needs to be a considered effort into how we address such issues in the UK.
Atkinson’s death has drawn sympathy from football fans and the general public alike. Dalian’s proximity to the nation’s favorite past-time has garnered an unprecedented amount of media attention. It’s also presented a catch 22 scenario. The media attention has led to an increase of awareness of police brutality in the UK, even if only at a surface level. On the other hand, relying on information from traditional news outlets known to spin can have drastic effects on the framing of the story and the subsequent treatment of communities of color.
RIP Dalian Atkinson. You’ll never be forgotten! #AVFC pic.twitter.com/eAPbAbtpJa
The media has played a role in the overall reaction to the death of Dalian Atkinson. Google his name, and you’ll see many headlines referring to his “death after being tasered” rather than the more appropriate “Dalian Atkinson killed by police after being tasered.” These word choices practically remove the accountability and responsibility of police. Perhaps it's the British inclination to skirt around issues that has partly led us to this place, but it’s also because many of these deaths are affecting ethnic minority, often working class communities, who seldom have a voice.
It remains to be seen how much Dalian Atkinson’s death will impact and influence public opinion; his athletic celebrity has garnered international attention, but it would be a stretch to say it's for that alone. It's been less than a month since Mzee Mohammed’s death and five years since Mark Duggan's death, and the British public still hasn't fully come to terms with the extent of institutional racism in this country, particularly at the hands of the police.
The hypervisibility of racist police brutality in the U.S. makes the stories of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Mike Brown, and Korryn Gaines difficult to ignore. While
It’s that there’s an epidemic in the US, the hypervisibility of US affairs makes the stories of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Korryn Gaines, and Mike Brown difficult to ignore. While protests are being led in the U.S. and beyond, it's pertinent that attention is also paid to victims of police brutality in the UK. There’s room for transatlantic collaboration—whether that’s with #BlackLivesMatter or other movements—to make our presence noticed and humanity acknowledged.
There is an epidemic in the us but we must turn our attention to the uk
Although many UK deaths that occur at the hands of police take place in custody—1,500 since 1990 to be exact according to Inquest—it’s an issue yet to be adequately addressed by the wider public, even after the 2011 riots.
Atkinson's death isn't an anomaly, either. Black people make up less than 3 percent of the UK’s population, yet between 2010 and 2014, 12 percent of the incidents where tasers were drawn and/or used involved black people. These figures certainly suggest that police brutality in the UK is nuanced and complex, and requires a collaborative effort to combat police misconduct. We must simultaneously acknowledge that silence and apathy toward this issue can play a significant role in ensuring that police custody deaths remain a regular occurrence.
According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, there is now greater disproportionality in the number of black people in prisons in the UK than in the United States.
Last year, former Home Secretary (and now Prime Minister) Theresa May announced that she would be launching an independent review into the deaths of people in police custody. “No one—least of all police officers—wants such incidents to happen, and I know everyone involved takes steps to avoid them. But when such incidents do occur, every single one represents a failure—and has the potential to undermine dramatically the relationship between the public and the police,” she said last October. Since the announcement, both Sarah Reed and Mzee Mohammed have died in police custody.
Although the process for such reviews take considerable time, these deaths don’t reflect May’s sentiment that police officers are taking adequate steps to avoid using excessive force.
There’s no telling how many more deaths will occur in 2016. Now that May is Prime Minister and there's increased media focus on deaths in police custody, UK officials have every reason to curb police brutality. As long as police brutality continues, resistance will follow until officers are held accountable for their actions and our citizens stop dying in their custody.
