The Met volunteer officer who stuck her tongue out after trying to stop a busker outside Selfridges has suffered “massive racist abuse” online in a new example of the public hostility which is deterring people from joining the force, Sir Mark Rowley said today.
The Met Commissioner said special constable Maya Hadzhipetkova had made “a mistake” in telling Harmonie London, a 20-year-old singer with more than 320,000 YouTube subscribers, to stop performing on Oxford Street while trying to do “her best” for the people of London.
He said that her error was being dealt with as a “management issue” and that the Met had apologised for her getting it “slightly wrong”.
But he expressed dismay at the “vitriol” directed at Ms Hadzhipetkova, who works as a volunteer special constable for the Met, saying it was a “real, real problem” that illustrated the toxicity that deterred others from entering policing.
“We had a special constable who was on patrol and because of complaints about busking decided she would deal with the case and she didn’t deal with it perfectly well – it was a woman singing some sort of religious songs – and we’re dealing with that as a management issue and we have said we got that slightly wrong,” Sir Mark told BBC Radio London.
“She has had massive racist abuse online, she has had all sorts of vitriol, she’s a volunteer doing her best who made a mistake. Now that doesn’t help policing in London.
“People behaving like that to me, I’m paid for it, I’ve stepped into a senior role. Someone who’s just out there a couple of days a week trying to help out her community who gets that vileness, that’s a real, real problem. That’s tough for my men and women on the frontline having to cope with that sort of thing day in, day out.”
Sir Mark’s words follow the incident earlier this week in which Ms Hadzhipetkova was filmed telling Harmonie London at the end of a long discussion about her busking: “No miss, you’re not allowed to sing church songs outside of church grounds, by the way.”
The singer filmed some of the exchange and posted it to Instagram on Sunday. As the officer walked away, she turned back and stuck her tongue out.
The Met later apologised after reviewing body worn footage of the incident, although it emphasised that the social media post widely viewed by the public did not reflect the full context of the 43 minute conversation between the special constable and the busker.
