Opinion: Patsy Stevenson should not be the voice - or face - of the police reform movement.
You might not know the name Patsy Stevenson, but if you looked at a newspaper or online news source in March 2021 you almost certainly know her face. Just as a refresher, this is her.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Patsy Stevenson attended the Sarah Everard vigil on March 13th 2021. At that vigil, she was pinned to the ground by Met Police, arrested and detained. She has since spoken at length and frequently about her experience of police brutality, and the PTSD she now feels as a result of this interaction.
But here is the thing - look at the photo of Patsy. Here it is from another angle.
Patsy was restrained in what is a fairly standard position for restraining someone on the ground. She is able to move, her airways are not restricted, she is able to raise and move her head, there are only 2 officers with hands on her. Now do not get me wrong: this should not have happened to her, and it does show that even standard practice in the police utilises unnecessary shows of force. But can we call this police brutality? In May 2020, a 28 year old Black woman was restrained on the floor by 6 Met police officers, punched repeatedly whilst on the floor, and was then strip searched in front of male officers. She had been going to collect a takeaway - they falsely claimed she had drugs. In June 2020, a Black man was restrained by 8 Met police officers who hit him, and one of them kicked him in the legs. On June 4th 2022, Oladeji Omishore fell to his death after being repeatedly tasered by the Met police. All he did was carry a cigarette lighter whilst in a mental health crisis. On December 8th 2020, a 16 year old schoolboy was punched in the face by a Met police officer for “acting cocky.” On June 23rd 2022, a 14 year old schoolboy was arrested on his way home from school, forced to the ground by 3 met police officers, and suffered bruising to his back. He was arrested because he was a black boy in a grey jumper that “fit the description” of a black boy in a blue jumper.
So I ask again - did Patsy experience police brutality? Or did she simply have a traumatic experience getting arrested, because as a white woman at a vigil, it’s not an experience she expected to have?
And therein lies my issue with her being the face of this movement. Every time Black and brown people show up to protest, we go with fear in our hearts that we might be assaulted by a police officer. Simply because our melanin had the nerve to be loud. Every time Black boys leave their homes, their mothers are scared they will get the call that 14 year old schoolboys mother received. Every time we are out driving and we see blue lights behind us, we feel sick that we might be pulled from our cars, or stopped simply because we don’t look like we belong. This has been our reality for generations. And we’ve been speaking on it for just as long.
Patsy Stevenson spoke on June 7th 2022 at the March on the Met protest in London. It was held for Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry. At this protest she stated before the Sarah Everard vigil, she hadn’t been an activist, she hadn’t been involved with activism, she hadn’t gone to protests. She stood up and stated at a protest for two murdered black women who were disrespected in death by met police officers, that it wasn’t until the murder of a white girl in 2021 that she decided to go and attend a vigil. Sarah Everard was murdered 10 months after George Floyd’s murder by police in Minnesota triggered the biggest global push for racial justice and equity.
Why were Black lives - the lives most at risk by police brutality - not enough to move Patsy? Not enough for her to pay attention? In interviews she gave after the Sarah Everard vigil, she stated she was not anti-police - she has since retracted this statement - but it still shows that whilst we were screaming that our lives mattered, the person now positioned as the go to voice on police brutality, simply was not paying attention.
Patsy herself acknowledges this to a degree, she says she was ignorant, that she hadn’t done the learning required, but that she has now. I don’t quite think that’s the case. When Boris Johnson faced basically no consequences for his law breaking, Patsy tweeted this. It is currently pinned to her twitter account.
The suggestion here being that small women at vigils are the main targets for police energy. We know this is not the case - why doesn’t she? If she has done the learning, why does she continue to centre herself in this conversation?
Patsy Stevenson became a public face overnight when that photo went to press, but she’s spent the last 15 months becoming a public figure - something she claims she doesn’t want and has only happened because she’s white, petite, and a woman. And that may well be why the calls are coming in, but it’s not why she’s become a public figure.
Patsy created her twitter account on March 14th 2021. The day after her photo went viral - she immediately created a platform for herself. She says the platform is accidental, but it seems to me like she carefully orchestrated a platform, and developed a public persona. If you don’t want to be the face of the cause, why do you keep saying yes? Why are you appearing on ITV news, GMB, LBC and more to speak on this publicly if you claim to not want to be the public face of this cause? Why are you saying yes to being a guest on shows to discuss Roe v. Wade - something separate from your police brutality cause - if you do not want to be the public face? Why, if you are both so concerned with the safety of women, and also do not want to be the public face of this cause, are you broadcasting your exact location to 35,000 people and encouraging them to come and say hello, the way an influencer might?
Having said all this I will acknowledge: I cannot claim to know her motivations. I myself find it suspicious that her actions and her words don’t line up, and it seems to me she might enjoy the attention of being the public figure she has become. But I don’t know that.
But what I do know is this. Patsy Stevenson had one interaction with the police and her life got better. Opportunites get given to her regularly - she’s got a podcast coming later this year, on top of her regular TV and radio appearances. She went from simply being a physics student, to being a byline writer for The Evening Standard and Indy Voices.
She claims not to want to be the public face and yet she is represented by a PR company. I know that at certain public appearances she says she wasn’t an activist, or engaged with activism before this vigil, and at another claims she used to be an activist but gave up. Whichever of these is true it shows she is not experiencing the world in the way we do - in any sense, not just in relation to the police. We don’t get to give up, or live in ignorance. Black and brown people in this country - and around the world - feel the weight of police brutality before we ever even interact with them. Because our history is weighed down with it. Are the police guilty of brutality against white people? Of course - but it’s not a systemic attack on you. The majority of you do not feel fear hearing sirens, or change the way you’re standing, walking, speaking, existing because two officers are walking towards you on the street. And when we are assaulted, mistreated, beaten, falsely imprisoned - our lives do not improve as a result.
Patsy Stevenson and people that exist in the world the way she does - white, cis gendered women - are not the biggest victims or targets of police misconduct, brutality, and corruption. They’re not even top 3 on that list. And if she had done the learning, if she truly was fighting intersectionally, she’d be saying no to these public appearance invites because she’d know - though there is a place for her in this movement, her voice is not the one that needs to be heard at the forefront.