Deteriorating relationships between the community and police are unacceptable. In response, a series of discussions has been brokered between Tottenham’s teens and the Metropolitan Police Service.
By Omar Alleyne-Lawler, Communications Officer
Following the death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter demonstrations and other protest movements in conjunction with recent Haringey related policing incidents, it is becoming clear that current tensions are unsustainable.
In turn, this makes our commitment for the police to engage with the community at both a local and centralised level ever more important.
With this in mind, HiT Engagement has been working hard with North Area Borough Commander CS Treena Fleming and the Taskforce Command at Wapping to have their agreement for our engagement programmes as schools return in September. We are delighted that Neil Billany has returned to Haringey as Chief Inspector for Neighbourhoods and will act as our direct link with the police for this work. Neil has worked in community policing in Haringey for many years and knows the Borough well.
Police probationers entering Haringey will, as part of their training, have discussion sessions in four Haringey secondary schools to hear young peoples’ concerns, questions and ideas about the policing they experience as teenagers every day on our streets. Informal visits to schools from Taskforce (TSG) officers will be again be organised with the same core purpose of mutual learning and understanding in a bid to replace hostility, suspicion and fear. There will also be the facilitation of lunchtime visits by neighbourhood officers in HiT partner primary schools and more initiatives besides.
HiT Engagement manager Rev. John Wood comments ‘Under charitable law we are not allowed to be a campaigning political organisation but HiT is committed to help building safe, resilient and mutually responsible communities. We hope these initiatives will help make a useful contribution to that task’.