Lee Lawrence was 11 years old when his mother, Cherry Groce, was shot and paralysed during a botched police raid on their home in Brixton, south London, in 1985. The incident sparked a two-day uprising in the community. Lawrence recalls that his childhood effectively ended that day, as he witnessed his mother being shot and then had a gun turned on him by an officer.
Lawrence's son, Brandon, recently experienced a similar trauma when an undercover police vehicle stopped their car aggressively. Lawrence feared guns would be drawn, and his son had to calm him down, reminding him that this is the reality for Black families. Lawrence says this incident reinforced the need to continue his work challenging racial bias in policing.
In 2016, Lawrence founded the Cherry Groce Foundation, which runs training programmes for police recruits and senior leaders on racial bias, diversity, and restorative justice. He also published a memoir, The Louder I Will Sing, which won the Costa prize, and is about to release a second book, The Colour of Injustice, documenting the overpolicing and under-protection of Britain's Black community.
Lawrence's research highlights stark statistics: Black people are seven times more likely to die after police restraint, five times more likely to experience force during arrest, and in some regions nine times more likely to be stopped and searched. Black defendants are also nearly 16 times more likely to be prosecuted under joint enterprise laws. Lawrence hopes his work will move the debate from whether racism exists to what can be done about it.
Cherry Groce died in 2011, and an inquest in 2014 ruled that multiple and serious police failures contributed to her death. Lawrence continues to campaign for justice, using his family's experience to push for systemic change.
