It was less than two hours after the emergency services had first been contacted that the police announced a 53-year-old white British man from Liverpool had been arrested; the force also issued a request for “people not to speculate on the circumstances surrounding tonight’s incident”.
Merseyside Police is working, of course, in the shadow of last year’s murder of three young children and the injuring of 10 others in Southport by Axel Rudakubana.
In the hours and days after the savage attack, social media crackled with rumours and allegations about the identity of the suspect. It was only the following day that the police disclosed that Rudakubana was the child of Rwandan parents.
In the absence of further official details, the false and misleading claims were quickly spread and amplified: where there is a void, the media ecosystem will fill it, accurately or inaccurately.
Advising that some information was misleading and warning people not to speculate was unrealistic in the absence of further, accurate details, and they effectively ceded the initiative to both those who were angry and anxious, and to more malign actors seeking to create tension and division.
Earlier this month, the inspectorate released a second report as part of its investigation, concluding that “the police service struggled to manage illegal and harmful online content, including misinformation and disinformation”.
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Merseyside Police must, understandably, have allowed itself a small collective sigh of relief on Monday when it had been able to announce that the suspect taken into custody was a white British man from the local area.
This time, the police have prevented the spread of false allegations with early, active disclosure of information.
This week, they were able to reassure the public, if “reassure” is the right word, that the suspect was not an immigrant or an asylum-seeker, nor a radical Islamist.
If the police did not release that information promptly – remember that on Monday it took Merseyside Police less than two hours – the silence would speak just as loudly as any official statement.
What is worse, the public would feel not only that the truth was being withheld, but that it was being withheld in an attempt to manipulate and control them, that they were being deceived because the forces of law and order did not trust them. It would seem like the worst kind of Establishment, de haut en bas contempt.
Public disclosure is a door that only opens one way. Merseyside Police’s rapid identification of the suspect’s age and ethnic background has set a benchmark. Any other force falling short of that measure in the future will eloquently, if tacitly, tell its own story.
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