Leroy Logan: How hard is it to root out discrimination in the police?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The sense of systemic racial injustice in policing that has fuelled the Black Lives Matter movement is shared far beyond the shores of the United States. In Britain, it is two decades since a top level inquiry into London's police force found it to be institutionally racist. How much has really changed? Stephen Sackur speaks to Leroy Logan, who was one of London's top black policemen until his retirement seven years ago. How easy is it to root out discrimination dressed in a police uniform?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:07.0 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:11.8 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today took a decision in his early 20s which changed his life forever. Leroy Logan, the son of |
| 0:23.4 | Jamaican immigrants in London, abandoned thoughts of a career in medicine and joined the police. |
| 0:30.0 | It was a move which attracted suspicion and hostility from within his own community, even within |
| 0:36.1 | his family. Leroy's father was assaulted by two policemen |
| 0:40.0 | just after his application to join the police force was submitted. But for Leroy, the police |
| 0:45.7 | was a calling, and he stuck at it for three decades, through an era in which the London police |
| 0:51.7 | force was publicly shamed for what a public inquiry 21 years ago |
| 0:56.4 | dubbed institutional racism. Back then, big promises were made about fostering a more diverse |
| 1:03.6 | police force and a more community-focused, prejudice-free style of policing. But here we are, |
| 1:10.0 | in 2020, with the UK and a host of other countries |
| 1:13.4 | witnessing the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement prompted and inspired by American activists |
| 1:19.6 | determined to confront what they see as systemic racism in the US judicial system. So just how hard is it to root out discrimination dressed in |
| 1:31.1 | police uniform? Well, Leroy Logan joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you very much for the |
| 1:37.1 | invitation. It's great to be here. Well, we're delighted to have you, not least, because you have written a |
| 1:41.2 | fascinating memoir, and you've entitled it, |
| 1:48.2 | Closing Ranked My Life as a Cop, so it's pretty clear what it's about. |
| 1:53.5 | You talk about your decision to join the police force many, many years ago as what you say is a calling. |
| 1:56.2 | You make it sound like some sort of religious commitment to the young man that you made to policing? |
| 2:02.4 | Well, it had to be as strong as that because my career path after my science degree was to be a |
| 2:10.1 | clinical researcher at the Royal Free Hospital, possibly going into medicine. And then this strong, |
... |
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