Northamptonshire police officer appears on Black Lives Matter talk show

A superintendent from Northamptonshire Police took part in a talk show last week to discuss race and social justice with young people.

Superintendent Dennis Murray appeared on Rumbidzai Bvunzawabaya's live talk show to answer questions from young people on topics like stop and search, how police are responding to protests and what the force is doing to combat inequality.

Rumbidzai Bvunzawabaya is a solicitor with an interest in social issues that affect diaspora communities, her talk show covers a range of topics and features stories from people and the challenges they face.

Supt Murray said: "I was really pleased to be invited on to Rumbi's talk show and there was some really thoughtful and insightful questions from the young people taking part.

"It's really important to us as a force to understand how the police and our communities can work together to tackle the issues at hand here and there was a real appetite last week from the young people to get involved and help influence policy in the future which can only be a good thing."

Supt Murray said in November that Northants Police needed "cultural change" after a report into the county's stop and search found that black people were nine times more likely to be stopped than white people between October 2014 and March 2017.

At the time, Supt Murray said: "We haven’t got it right. I don’t fully understand what is driving that disproportionality. There is no doubt about it that cultural change needs to happen. We have the appetite to change it.

Last week's show focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and Supt Murray joined Dalitso Tembo and Rumbi Mukoyi from African Youth Arise (AYA) and Benjamin Humanise from Active Horizons.

Rumbi Mukoyi said: "We need to break the barriers between the police and young people from the black community by initiating a continuous dialogue and hopefully increase transparency on how police deal with these matters.

"It is important to create a platform for our young people to air their concerns as they are disproportionately affected by stop & search, racism and social injustice.

"We need to equip and educate young people on how to participate in societal issues which will enable them to implement change that they want to see. Black Lives Matter - now is the time and this cannot wait."