SINN Féin Group Leader on Derry and Strabane District Council, Councillor Sandra Duffy has strongly criticised recent PSNI operations in the city which she said are damaging public confidence in policing.
Addressing yesterday’s meeting of the Policing and Community Safety Partnership (PCSP), Cllr. Duffy said: “We have major concerns about some policing issues that came to the fore over the summer months here in the city.
“These are not new issues, as we have been raising them for some time, both publicly and privately at meetings with the police.
“However, at the beginning of August, there was a house raid in Creggan where a 14 year old child with a learning disability was cable tied and taken out of a house without his parents present.
“This young person was subsequently released almost as soon as he reached the Strand Road.
“We have asked before about Community Impact assessments and we have had no satisfactory answers.
“We have also seen different policing styles implemented in different parts of this city – a fact that was acknowledged by the police at a meeting in July.
“The handling of the Black Lives Matter Protests was also completely different in Derry than in Belfast, as evidenced by the large number of fines issued here.
“All this badly damages public confidence in policing.”
Cllr Duffy added: “At yesterday’s meeting I asked the PSNI directly to reflect on these incidents and to acknowledge how police actions, particularly the incident with the 14 year old child, are negatively impacting on public confidence in policing.
“The onus is now on the PSNI to begin repairing some of that damage by ensuring that policing operations are carried out sensitively and in a human-rights compliant manner,” she added.
Tags: