Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe

At short notice it has been announced that the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Bernard “total policing” Hogan-Howe is holding a discussion with him on Wednesday 7 December 2011 at 7pm – 8pm, though the venue will open for refreshments at 6:30pm. The meeting is open to residents of Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich only. Register now

The venue is Lewisham College, Lewisham Way, SE4 1UT, so residents are encouraged to sign up as soon as possible. In this hour he will explain what Total Policing is and why he thinks it is right for London.

Some possible questions to ask Bernard Hogan-Howe may be:

• Tasers: Why should we trust the police to have more weapons?
  Hogan-Howe thinks every police car should have one. However a former Southwark resident: Justice Livingstone was tasered 9 times last month for carrying a toy gun which he bought as a present for his son. The tasers that the Met have issued are not 100% safe, and two people have died this summer from being tasered by police.
• Stop and search: When will you ban the use of sus laws? 
  30 years on from the Scarman report we are still continuing Sus laws, they do not reduce crime but merely lawful discrimination against ethnic minorities and working class people particularly amongst young people. Hogan-Howe should suspend its use as it has been proven by the government’s own data that only 1 in 10 stop and searches result in an arrest even fewer result in a conviction! It is antagonistic, counter-intuitive and dangerous to wider community relations.
• Deaths in police custody: Will you pledge that the officers that were involved in the attempted smear campaign which suggested that Mark Duggan, an unarmed man, was involved in a shoot-out will be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?
  According to Stafford Scott, a former member of IPCC Community Reference Group were told that at least three officers had given a statement that they had witnessed another officer, a sergeant, throwing away the gun that was later found several feet from Duggan’s body.
  Do you think it is credible that no police officer has ever been convicted of any crime when there have been 333 cases of deaths in custody? 
• Criminalising protest: Will you scrap use of undercover officers in non-violent protest/campaigning groups based in London? Do you agree that the police should not be surveying non-violent political groups such as anti-Nazi, anti-fascist organisations for the government?

To register your attendance at for event click on the photo at the bottom.