„In this specific case, the police is never the one choosing the indi­vi­dual to inter­fere with,“ said Iceland’s Chief of Police at an open meeting in Parli­ament. The meeting was held to discuss police officer’s education on multiculturalism and prejudice. The main rea­son for it being held now was an incident that occurred last April, when a 16 year old boy, who is black, was approached twice by police when search for the convict Gabríel Duane Boama was being carried out.

Police must chase leads

Arndís Anna Krist­ín­ar­dóttir Gunn­ars­dóttir, a congresswoman for the Pirate party, requested the meeting due to worries recently voiced in the community about racial profil­ing in Iceland.

„We are following through with leads from the public,“ said the Chief of Police, Sigríður Björk Guð­jóns­dóttir, when it was her time to answer the questions and worries raised at the start of the meeting. „So in this specific case there is no racial profil­ing to be found. In this scenario we are searching for a dangerous man, there are leads coming in and we must follow through with them. We simply cannot choose not to chase after some of them, due to the nat­ure of the assign­ment.“

Misunderstandings in the media coverage

Guð­jóns­dóttir claimed to be sadd­ened by the fact that the young boy had to be subject to repeated disturbance by police. She does however claim there to have been some misund­er­stand­ing in the media’s coverage on the matter. All vid­eos of the incidents have app­arently been scrutinized.

„The special forces did not barge in with weapons held high. They actually never communicated with the boy, never tal­ked to him,“ Guð­jóns­dóttir claimed. She also emphasized that police officers are specially trained to identify people. Ther­efore, they had immedi­ately been aware that the boy in question was not the one they were searching for. „In the first instance, they walked to the end of the bus, tur­ned around and exited. Neverthel­ess, this was very traumatic for the boy. The second incident was very sim­ilar. A police officer walks in and starts talking to the boy’s mother. That is a conversation that we have on tape.“

Police must listen to the community they serve

The Chief of Police said that despite this case not being an example of racial profil­ing, many aspects of it are worth pond­er­ing. She emphasized the fact that the police are servants to the people and, as such, it is tri­vial that they listen to the voices of the community that they serve. Guð­jóns­dóttir wondered whether police should possi­bly have issued some sort of warning when announcing of Boama’s escape and advert­is­ing him as a wanted man in the media. She claimed that police had discussed the matter with the parents of the boy who had twice been wrongfully identified by the public. She said that police would be better equipped with evalu­at­ing sim­ilar things after these incidents. „It is intolera­ble that this should happen to an innocent young per­son, that they should end­ure such a traumatic experience.“

In the meeting, Guð­jóns­dóttir went over some of the work carried out within the police force in the last few years, reg­ar­ding prejudice and racism. For example, a ban of certain signs on police officer’s uni­forms, as well as the work still being carried out. She tal­ked about the education received by police officers reg­ar­ding prejudice and hate crime, among other things.

Guð­jóns­dóttir claimed it to be vital to reinforce nationwide inner supervision in the police force. She recommended a joint effort in the community to deal with every day prejudice and recommended that parli­ament be the dri­v­ing force behind it.

This article was orig­inally publ­is­hed in Icelandic by Gunn­hildur Kjerúlf Birg­is­dóttir.