update 30 April 2021: PC Deniz Jaffer, 47, and PC Jamie Lewis, 32, have now both been charged with misconduct in public office
Sack police who refused to search for missing sisters and then shared selfies of bodies
Sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46 were murdered but the police treatment of the families has shocked the country.
The police refused to search for the sisters when the family asked for help to find them. A boyfriend of one of the sisters eventually found the bodies.
Police officers involved in the inquiry took photographs of the deceased and allegedly shared the selfies on some of their social media.
This level of dehumanisation of black women is truly horrendous, not to mention racist. The officers have been suspended.
At the least, the police officers who took the disgusting selfies should be sacked forthwith and then prosecuted for misconduct in a public office.
Two days ago an 18-year-old man was arrested after the police were forced to put resources into hunting down the suspect.
Thought they knew who she was – a black woman who lives on a council estate
The sisters’ mum, Mina Smallman, told the BBC the pictures “dehumanised” her children.
“This has taken our grief to another place,” she Mina
“If ever we needed an example of how toxic it has become, those police officers felt so safe, so untouchable, that they felt they could take photographs of dead black girls and send them on.
“It speaks volumes of the ethos that runs through the Metropolitan Police.”
Mina added: “They [her daughters] were nothing to them and what’s worse, they sent them on to members of the public.
“I knew instantly why they didn’t care. They didn’t care because they looked at my daughter’s address and thought they knew who she was.
“A black woman who lives on a council estate.”
