London police faced an official inquiry into their actions after
they intervened on Saturday night in the vigil for Sarah Everard,
33, who disappeared as she walked home on March 3. A policeman
has been charged with her murder.
"Like everyone who saw it I was deeply concerned about the
footage from Clapham Common on Saturday night," Johnson said in
a statement, referring to the London parkland near where the
impromptu gathering took place in defiance of a police ban due
to COVID-19 restrictions.
Everard's killing has provoked a huge outpouring of grief and
dismay in Britain at the failure of police and wider society to
tackle violence against women.
People will gather at Parliament Square later on Monday under
the banner "End Violence Against Women".
Johnson said the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick
had committed to reviewing the police action and Interior
minister Priti Patel had ordered a review to learn lessons on
how to improve policing of such events in future.
Police chief Dick backed her officers and said that they needed
to make a very difficult judgement.
"We're still in a pandemic, unlawful gatherings are unlawful
gatherings, officers have to take action if people are putting
themselves massively at risk," Dick told reporters.
Asked if she was considering resigning, she said: "No, I'm not."
Kit Malthouse, the minister for crime and policing, was asked on
Sky News if he backed calls for Dick to resign. "No I don't," he
said.
"I do recognise that the police are in an incredibly difficult
position, I mean throughout this pandemic, we've asked them to
do a job that they've never done before, and to stand between
the public and this terrible virus, in a way that none of us are
used to," Malthouse said.
(Reporting by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by
Kate Holton)
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