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General => Articles => Topic started by: PippaJane on April 09, 2022, 10:55:48 AM

Title: Exclusive: Wayne Couzens' Met Police unit celebrate George Floyd's murder in....
Post by: PippaJane on April 09, 2022, 10:55:48 AM
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/wayne-couzens-met-police-unit-26670931?utm_source=mirror_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_morning_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

Exclusive: Wayne Couzens' Met Police unit celebrate George Floyd's murder in sick racist messages

A message shared by ex-officers from Wayne Couzens' elite unit celebrated the 2020 US police killing of George Floyd. They also shared an image of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with racist language

By Michael Gillard & Tom Pettifor Crime Editor

20:53, 8 Apr 2022 Updated 21:00, 8 Apr 2022

Former members of killer policeman Wayne Couzens’ elite unit shared sick messages including one celebrating the murder of George Floyd.  A Met Police whistleblower has come forward with a massive archive of racist, sexist and homophobic images in a WhatsApp group including ex-officers from the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection command.  One celebrates the 2020 US police killing of Mr Floyd, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. A doctored photograph titled “Pink Floyd”, shows the victim’s dying moments as a Minneapolis officer kneels on his head.  Other messages shared in the group include an image of Prince Harry and wife Meghan with racist language.  And a picture was posted of a mocked-up T-shirt with an image of British BLM activist Sasha Johnson, who was shot last year, with a bullet hole in her head and the words “Black Lives Splatter”.  A spoof pandemic poster shows a white mother and child two metres from a black child and the comment: “Quite right, probably carrying a blade.”

There is an image of a hippopotamus sculpture captioned: “Guys who votes we pull down this statue of Diane Abbott?”

And a message mocking the murder of Sarah Everard three days after Couzens’ arrest, says: “Sick b*****d, only a few people I can send this to will find it as funny as we do.”

The cache is the latest in a string of scandals which have resulted in the resignation this weekend of Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick.  Whistleblower Dave Eden 62, a member of the protection command in the 1990s, was in a WhatsApp group started in 2018.  Members had to be invited and vouched for by current and former PaDP officers, he said. It is also thought to have included serving and former non-PaDP officers.  He said Ms Dick had paid “lip service to prevention” and issued “meaningless diversity statements”.

Couzens, 49, is serving a whole-life tariff in prison for Sarah’s abduction, rape and murder.  A Scotland Yard spokesman asked Mr Eden to contact the force.  They added: “Racism, sexism and homophobia are completely unacceptable and we will take a zero tolerance approach to any serving officer or member of staff who breaches our standards.”

Two judges ruled last month that the Met breached the rights of the organisers of a planned vigil for Sarah.  Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North, said: "These are horrible and upsetting messages and one of them is about me.  They happen to reveal a racist and misogynistic culture in the Met police which is what we saw in the WhatsApp messages from Charing Cross police station.  This racist and misogynistic culture is behind some of the recent scandals, whether it's the murder of Sarah Everard, the way the vigil for her was treated and the strip searching of child Q by the police.  I think that the incoming commissioner really has to tackle this culture. It needs to be understood that racism and misogyny is not going to go unpunished."