'Small Axe: Red, White and Blue': Who is Leroy Logan? Father's assault by cops motivated him to change system
Just as the Black population in America, people of African and West Indian descent were subjected to racism in the United Kingdom. A new anthology from '12 Years a Slave' director Steve McQueen centers around London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s and is inspired by real-life people.
'Small Axe' will be released on Prime Video weekly. The third film in the anthology, 'Red, White and Blue', focuses on the story of Leroy Logan, born of Jamaican immigrant parents in 1957, who as a research scientist decided to become a police officer after seeing his father being assaulted by two officers. Logan is credited with having helped changed the Metropolitan Police's racist attitude in a large way. Logan firmly believed that he could change the institution from within, and this creates a fallout in his family, his father being set against Logan's decision to join the police force.
Leroy Logan graduated from Hackney Community College with a degree in applied biology. Logan joined the police in 1983, after seeing his father assaulted by two policemen, determined to change the racist attitudes in the police force from within. Throughout his 30 years with the United Kingdom's Metropolitan Police, Logan faced continued racism. He had been encouraged by some policemen that he knew to think about joining, and his professor had also suggested the move in a bid for him to utilize his outgoing nature.
"The better I did [in the job], the more suspicious people were," Logan recently recalled, during an interview with the Guardian. "Why would this Black guy, older and a scientist, join the job? I had some good arrests. I found one lock-up and with that, we cleared up almost all of the outstanding local burglaries. I was a late joiner; I wasn't messing around. But people were getting jealous. At Islington, someone in the secure area of the station daubed the N-word on my locker."
During the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, who died in April 1993, Logan had a particularly difficult time. Logan also founded what would become the Black Police Association, in which he remains as an executive member. In 2003, when the Scotland Yard led an investigation into an alleged false expenses claim by Logan, the case was ruled in his favor and Logan was paid £100,000 by the Met — roughly just above $163,000 — after Logan was cleared and he took the met to an employment tribunal for victimization.
In 2001, Logan was awarded an MBE by the Queen, and in 2003, he retired from the force, subsequently publishing his memoir Closing Ranks: My Life As A Cop in September this year. Now 63, Logan continues to work with youth in the community through his charity, Voyage Youth. He is a father to three children and continues to advocate and champion charities and causes, as well as speaking out about the Met Police.
'Small Axe: Red, White and Blue' premieres on Prime Video on Friday, December 4.
