London’s police chief apologized on Wednesday after an undercover reporter filmed officers making sexualized comments, reveling in the use of violence and expressing racist views.
“The behavior depicted in this program is reprehensible and completely unacceptable,” Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London, said in a statement. He added, “I am truly sorry.”
The footage, part of a documentary about police conduct broadcast by the BBC on Wednesday, has renewed the pressure on a force still reeling after a number of previous scandals that shook public confidence in British policing.
In the video, one officer could be seen making dismissive comments about accusations of rape and domestic violence made by a pregnant woman, while another described enthusiastically how he had seen a colleague stamp on a suspect’s leg.
A third officer told the undercover reporter, while socializing in a pub, that a person who had overstayed his visa and been detained should have had “a bullet through his head.”
Nine officers and one staff member have now been suspended, the police said on Wednesday. Two other officers had been removed from frontline duties pending investigations into the issues raised by the film.
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