Blair accused of politicizing police

Speaking to the Leveson Inquiry, set up to investigate press standards and ethics following the phone hacking scandal, Ian Blair said “the political genie” has been haunting police forces and services in Britain since Tony Blair’s premiership.

“I don’t know how the political genie can be put back in the bottle,” said Ian Blair. He maintained that the British police became politicized after Tony Blair announced the police should be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”

Blair was the highest ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service from 2005 to 2008.

In 2005, the Metropolitan police officers shot an unarmed man in the head seven times at Stockwell tube station in London.

Ian Blair said the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) could not consider the case saying “the shooting that has just occurred at Stockwell is not to be referred to the IPCC and that they will be given no access to the scene at the present time.”

However, in 2007, the IPCC announced that the Metropolitan police had misled the public over the shooting while it blamed Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman.

Ian Blair’s raising concerns over Britain’s politicized police comes at a time when British police’s indiscriminate shootings are coming to a head.

The latest case came as the IPCC confirmed that the young man British police shot dead in Cheshire last week did not have a gun in his car.

Since 1998, 300 individuals have died in police custody or after detention. Nevertheless, no single police officer has ever been convicted.

ISH/HN/HE

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