AN UNFAIR COP

31-10-2009

A West Midlands Police officer has been “warning off” cinemas in Birmingham from showing the locally made gangster movie “One Day” which is released next week.

In a video released by WMP to emphasise that they had no formal powers to ban the film, Assistant Chief Constable Suzette Davenport conceded that a member of the constabulary had allowed his personal views to be known to cinema managers.

She said: “We’ve got a whole range of officers who do understand and see the implications of gang related violence – in dealing with the victims and their families and their friends – and have actual strong personal views about the appropriateness of the film.

“And it would appear that one of our officers has been to one or more of the cinemas and expressed the personal view, which is ‘I don’t think this is appropriate stuff for people to be watching and that it glamourises gang related violence’.

“When we have a duty to protect the public it, he felt that’s what he was doing, making sure those images were not out on the street”.

Davenport also gives her own view that there are aspects of the film which glamourise violence, and negatively stereotype young black men – the leading character Flash, for instance, has five children with three “babymamas”.

The Police are to be commended for their honesty – but this statement leaves a number of crucial questions unanswered.

Was the officer who visited one or more cinemas in uniform? Did he make it clear that he was acting in a personal capacity?

Did he express a fear that by showing the films, the cinemas might attract violence? And did he have any intelligence to back this up?

Has he been disciplined in any way? Or does West Midlands Police endorse this kind of behaviour by its officers?

The Odeon New Street has already indicated that it won’t be screening One Day on its release next week, and it’s by no means certain that any other cinema will do so either – raising the prospect that Birmingham will be the one city in the UK where it can’t be seen.

If this can happen, what chance of securing investment for other edgy, passionate, and challenging film projects in the city.

For what it’s worth, The Stirrer reckoned, “ This is a film which may not paint a picture that Marketing Birmingham would like to recognise, but it’s a sincere and occasionally inspired attempt to deal with the tough realities of inner city life.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had the chance to make up your own mind?