LONDON – Patsy Stevenson said she intended only to watch the vigil by Sarah Everard, whose disappearance while walking home in London captivated and horrified the nation.
But, looking at the camera while two policemen held her down, Stevenson became a symbol of the protests themselves.
Stevenson, one of three women detained at the event in the midst of fights with the police, told Sky News that she never wanted the notoriety, but would try to use it to force the change anyway.
“I accidentally went viral,” she said. “The only way not to do this in vain is not to do this politically, not to do it against the police or against anyone. Literally, it is only about the safety of women. “
“We need to change the system where women have no voice and it is not safe for women to walk on the street,” said Stevenson.
Despite her reluctance to be “launched into the public eye”, Stevenson, along with Everard, continued the trend on Twitter in the UK on Monday.
Stevenson was among about 1,000 attendees at Saturday’s big meeting to honor Everard, 33, a marketing executive. The official vigil was canceled by organizers after police said they would violate national blockade measures.
On Friday, Wayne Couzens, an elite officer in the London Metropolitan Police’s diplomatic protection command, was charged with Everard’s kidnapping and murder.
Everard’s disappearance on March 3 and the discovery of his body a week later sparked a wave of anger and sadness over the low conviction rates of people who commit violence against women in the UK, and sparked reactions from politicians across the spectrum political.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson is scheduled to meet with senior cabinet members on Monday to discuss strategies to combat violence against women and girls. The meeting comes amid more planned protests outside Parliament.
“Like everyone who saw it, I was deeply concerned about the shooting of Clapham Common on Saturday night,” Johnson said in a statement released on Sunday, referring to images of the improvised vigil in South London.
Johnson commissioned two analyzes of how Saturday’s vigil was conducted, but failed to join more and more calls for the London Metropolitan Police chief to resign.
Police Commissioner Cressida Dick challenged such calls, calling the vigil “an illegal meeting, which posed a serious risk to people’s health according to regulations.”
She defended her policemen who had to conduct “diabolically difficult policing” to disperse the mass crowd, but “totally” understood “the force of feeling”, especially for women.
“I would not like to see a memorial watch for Sarah ending with these scenes,” added Dick.
Everard was last seen walking home on a busy London street earlier this month. Closed-circuit television images showing her wearing brightly colored clothes on a well-lit street have been etched in the minds of many women who take similar precautions when walking alone after dark.
Jamie Klingler, an organizer of the group Reclaim these Streets, told NBC News that this image has become “painful” for many women because the burden of their safety falls on them, despite the behavior of male perpetrators.
“She was kidnapped and killed and that scared us all,” she added.
The fury after Everard’s death disturbed some of those closest to the murdered woman. An opinion piece written by one of her friends, Helen Edwards, called for the politicization of Everard’s death to stop.
“Your kidnapping and murder are, in my opinion, not a symptom of a sexist and dangerous society. When something terrible like this happens, there is a race to look for reasons and to blame, ”wrote Edwards.
The impact of Everard’s death continues to reverberate in public conversations about violence against women around the world.
“The reason why the murder of Sarah Everard shocked all of us is because it could have been any of us,” said Rothna Begum, senior researcher on women’s rights at Human Rights Watch.
“Now what really resonates is, ‘Why was she killed? How did she die simply by simply walking home at night? ‘”
Unrelated to the Everard murder case, a policing bill is expected to have its second reading in Parliament this week. The nearly 300-page project quickly became controversial following the police response, prompting some lawyers to say that it would “greatly expand” the powers of policing and sparking criticism from the police. several opposition politicians, who now plan to vote against the legislation.
THE #PolicingBill The hashtag was up on Twitter in the UK on Monday.
Elizabeth Kuhr contributed.