As night fell on the part of South London where Sarah Everard took her last steps ten days ago, the clouds parted for one last ray of sunshine.
At the Clapham Orchestra, where thousands of people began to gather for a vigilance allegedly canceled due to Covid, someone started beating a drum – its predictable rhythm is a reminder of the raft of casual misogyny that the crowd said highlighted it.
Couples hold candles, flatmates hold flowers; there were many men as well as women, and when the darkness fell for a minute, they became silent and thought of a 33-year-old Everard, whose only accident was apparently alone after dark on the street.
Everard was ripped off a busy road in this suburb of London on March 3 at about 9.30pm when he was walking home from a friend’s house.
The randomness of her disappearance and the circumstances under which she disappeared made women all over the capital falter. Thousands have recounted their own experiences being intimidated or harassed while walking alone at night.
That the suspect is one of his officers has made this vigilant a difficult event for the London police force to oversee.
At first, it seemed like they were making an effort to get the optics right and place female and male police officers in equal numbers around the crowd.
Less than an hour after the rally began, officers moved in to remind people that they were violating coronavirus regulations and had to leave.
Shortly afterwards, more officers – mostly men – moved in and said they were now ordering people to leave, otherwise they would be fined. Arguments broke out.
One woman said, “I can not go home, I am afraid to go home, I have to walk home.”
Then the stage is stormed with women handcuffed and dragged to police vans. The crowd shouted: ‘Shame on you’, ‘Let them rest’ and ‘Arrest your own’.
The London mayor has demanded an explanation and politicians from left and right have expressed their outrage over the excessive use of force. Some even request that the head of the Met, himself a woman, resign.
Like the drum beat, this state of affairs also felt predictable.
“Doesn’t that look good for the Met tonight?” said one man is being moved. “Just leave these people behind to have their moment,” he shouted.
Everard’s death spurred that moment – a moment of long-awaited national recognition of women’s rights in the UK, calling for new laws recognizing misogyny as a hate crime.
Many Londoners have wondered this week why it took a senseless death of a young woman to finally erupt the outrage.
The answer may be in how quickly the vigilance was silenced on Saturday.