The chief of Greater Manchester Police in England has publicly refused to apologize for his force's historical persecution of LGBTQ+ people. Chief Constable Stephen Watson wrote that it would "unfairly impugn the faithful and valued services of past officers" and likely "make little or no difference to developing contemporary practice."
"I am of course sorry that GMP, and those police bodies which preceded the presently formed GMP prior to 1974, didn't always perform to the standards deserved by those who we served," Mr Watson wrote in response to gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
At the height of the AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s, the longtime GMP chief Sir James Anderton's opinons were unambigious; he said sufferers were "swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making," sent police with "spotlights [to] search for gay men around the canal's locks and bridges," and secretly met with leaders of the fascist National Front to facilitate its banned political marches.
In his letter, Mr Watson said that while he would not issue a general apology, he would be "more than willing" to apologise to any individual who experienced "the sort of wrongdoing" Mr Tatchell described, if evidence were to be provided. But Mr Tatchell said there were a number of "obvious and well-known" incidents where LGBTQ+ people were victimised by GMP, including raids on local gay venues during which patrons were subjected to "vindictive, malicious police harassment". "GMP was at the forefront of police homophobia in the UK," he said.
When Watson decribes apologies as performative, he's admitting it would be personally insincere for him to give one, which is fair enough. But in the context of the request, his response implies that a public institution represents not the public interest but the conscience of its officers. We have a word for that impulse; you can find it earlier in this post.
