A teenage boy was knocked down by a police van and then arrested at gunpoint because he and his little sister were playing with bright blue and pink water pistols, a press conference has heard.
Community organisers claimed a police officer saw the boy and his much younger sister playing with the brightly-coloured water pistols in Stoke Newington, but reported to colleagues that he had seen “a black male with a gun”.
“It was unmistakably a water gun,” said the organisers of a press conference held this morning (October 19) to draw attention to the incident.
The incident has placed the Met Police at the centre of a new race row. Speakers at the press conference repeatedly accused the force of “institutional” and “systemic” racism.
After the officer reported the boy and his sister to colleagues, the conference heard, a police van allegedly rammed the teen off of his scooter before officers surrounded him with guns and handcuffed him.
The boy and others who witnessed the incident in July – including his little sister – have been left traumatised, a press conference at the IDPAD Centre in Lower Clapton Road was told.
The teen is suffering from “continuous” nightmares, said Courtney Brown, chief executive of community group Father 2 Father.
“It’s something that will never leave you,” added Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of the Black Equity Organisation.
“A traumatic experience like this is going to leave lasting psychological and very often physical damage.”
In a statement read aloud at the press conference, the boy’s mother said she was “very angry” about the “deeply traumatic experience”.
She accused the Met of treating her family “with contempt”.
The boy and his family did not attend the press conference, but a solicitor representing their interests did.
Raju Bhatt, of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, claimed the teen had suffered injuries from being hit by the police van and further injuries caused by police handcuffs.
“The officers saw what was in fact a vulnerable young child but instead they saw a youth – a black youth – a threatening black youth – and acted on that,” he added.
Mr Bhatt said the incident was evidence of “systemic racism” in the police, but claimed the Met’s professional standards department and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) have already determined there was no misconduct.
“At this very, very early stage… before any investigation has even commenced, even the possibility of any disciplinary wrong – let along criminal wrong – has been eliminated,” he claimed.
Lee Jasper, chairman of the Alliance for Police Accountability, said the Met Police faced “serious questions”.
“Had that gone tragically wrong, we would be facing a very different scenario now,” he said.
“That child was inches from death. Literally inches.”
The Metropolitan Police was invited to the press conference but did not attend.
Mr Jasper claimed the force had cited an ongoing “rapid review”.
Among the audience at the press conference was retired former Hackney deputy borough commander Leroy Logan, who slammed the Met.
“I’m so angry about this,” said Mr Logan, who held the senior role in the Met from 2004 to 2007.
He said the officers should have been immediately removed from operational duties.
Instead, he alleged, there are “officers who feel they are unaccountable still running the streets of London with guns”.
Mr Jasper said the situation would not help the already “catastrophic” levels of confidence that Black people have in the Met.
The Met Police said it had apologised to the family.
It referred itself to the IOPC, but the IOPC told the Met to investigate itself.
It cleared itself of any wrong doing.
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