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news
Met PoliceBlack teen on charity ride ‘grabbed from bike’ by Met police officer
A black teenager has spoken of how he was knocked off his bike into thorny bushes by a plainclothes Metropolitan Police officer who also threatened him with a stun gun. The incident, on the River Lea towpath, happened as 13-year-old Huugo Boateng was taking part in a charity bike ride with his father.
Speaking to the Observer, the teenager said: “I’d turned around to see if my dad had caught up behind me, and suddenly this man came out of nowhere.
“He was crazy angry and shouting. I got scared because I thought he might be mugging me or trying to give me corona so I ran, but there was nowhere to go but in the bushes.”
The youngster was left with cuts on his face after landing head-first in the thorns.
He said that the police officer aimed a Taser at him before handcuffing him, while elsewhere on the path his father Andrew, aged 43, was also put in handcuffs by officers, with the pair suspected of having been involved in a stabbing incident nearby.
The incident happened at around 6.30pm on Thursday 4 June – the day after thousands of people had marched through central London in a Black Lives Matter protest.
Between six and eight police officers were present and Huugo’s father Andrew said: “If this was a normal stop and search, I could respect that. But it is obvious why we were treated the way we were.
“The police came in at high-octane aggression level 10. We were on a family bike ride, and my son was essentially assaulted by a police officer. We were threatened with Tasers even though we weren’t resisting, and then just put in handcuffs.”
Part of the incident was recorded by photographer Louise Paton, who lives on a houseboat moored on the river, with footage published on the Observer’s website, after she began filming following an appeal from Andrew for someone to record what was happening on camera.
In response to a question from her, a police officer said: “The victim at this point was very unwilling to give us descriptions. The only thing he has given us is IC3 [police code for a black person] males on a bike … That’s very vague, isn’t it?”
She said: “The mood was defensive, borderline aggressive and patronising. I was disgusted. It really drove the issue [of racism] home for me.
“The way they spoke to Andrew, the way they treated him and kept him in handcuffs so long when he could prove so quickly he was completely innocent and the wrong person. It was just so disappointing to see.”
Besides his job at City University, Andrew volunteers for the outreach programme Kinckoff@3, whose co-founder Michael Wallace is a police officer with the Met.
He said: “I couldn’t vouch for a more humble and more dedicated member of the community.
“The irony is that Kickoff@3 is about building good relationships with youth and the police, and Andy is instrumental in helping with that programme. The bike ride he was doing was organised by us – we were raising money for a homeless charity and a domestic violence one.”
The Metropolitan police said: “The Met has received a complaint from a member of the public in relation to this incident. The Met takes all complaints seriously and this will be thoroughly investigated.”
Pointing out that he had worked alongside police on initiatives relating to youth and knife crime, Andrew said, “There has to be some learning from the police.
“I got this when I was a teenager, and you were taught to keep your head down and stay calm.
You’d think by now things would have changed and I wouldn’t have to have that conversation with my own kids. I’ve always taught them to trust the police.”
The family live in Tottenham, and their local MP, David Lammy, called for an investigation, saying that the incident “has understandably caused alarm in the community.”
Police said that the stabbing victim, a 21-year-old male, had been taken to hospital and subsequently discharged.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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111 comments
I agree Jimmy Ray Will that it is depressing that automatically the description of black males on bikes justifies the use of force.
Unfortunately it sounds like a case of the adrenaline level of the initial officer in this case clouding their judgement. If the father and son were fleeing the scene of a crime, as has been stated by Luxie.... "Their adrenaline is up, they most likely are frightened and they arent going to want to stop. "
Did the police officer take time to try and assess whether they were indeed fleeing the scene. Or were they simply cycling down the towpath like every other person on that day?
Secondly, was there more than one officer? If not why would the officer take down the child, rather than the adult, as surely the adult would have posed a bigger threat?
But more worryingly the officers in question kept both father and son in cuffs far longer than they needed to be, because the father could easily have proved, within 30 seconds their innocence by virtue of the tracking app on his phone.
To me it reeks of racial profiling.
It's quite depressing to me to se ehow many commentators here don't get it.
A description of two black males on bikes, is surely not good enough to justify the police manhandling any/all black cyclist off their bikes.
I am confident that a description of 'two white men on bikes', would not be deemed adequate to warrant jumping all white cyclists... the difference here is indicative of institutional racism.
As is the delay in releasing the 'suspects' following successful identification.
There really is no discussion. People can 'what if' all they like, but that's the truth of it.
This country has come a long way in my life time with race, however I am concerned that the whole BLM thing is not necessarily going to improve things further - I believe the BLM approach is inflammatory and deliberately devisive. We do however, need to open our eyes and see what is there in plain sight, if we are only willing to accept it.
Several comments here regarding them fleeing. It clearly states the initial officers were plain clothes. The right to stop vehicles applies to officers in uniform, so at that point the cyclist was perfectly entitled to try and flee, or exercise their right to premptive self defence if stopped by force.
As such, even with a major incident like stabbing, the plain clothes officer should be radioing it in. While they can flag down the cyclist, if the cyclist doesn't stop they shouldn't be stopping them with force, as UK self defence laws would then apply (hint; getting a D lock to the face before falling in the river (probably now unconcious so drowning risk) doesn't help catch the person who stabbed someone and is potentially legal on the basis the cyclist didn't know they were a police officer and feared it was a mugging).
Thanks, interesting point. If the plain clothes cop didn't have the authority to stop the cyclist, then the whole basis of this story changes.
I was initially sceptical that the right to stop vehicles only applying to uniformed officers also applied to bicycles, but it does; from the Road Traffic Act 1988
"163Power of police to stop vehicles
(1)A person driving a motor vehicle on a road must stop the vehicle on being required to do so by a constable in uniform.
(2)A person riding a cycle on a road must stop the cycle on being required to do so by a constable in uniform."
So the officer had no authority to stop the lad, let alone shout at them and threaten them with a taser and stop them by force.
Does the Road Traffic Act apply to towpaths though?
I think the power to stop and the power to arrest are two different things. Being required to stop is not being arrested, but if you are arrested clearly you have to stop as well. I don't think police have to be in uniform to arrest you, indeed for indictable offences I think anyone can arrest you, but they must identify themselves.
So Srchar you kicked this all off - have you come up with any evidence to defend your original claim that the police aren't racist?
In all fairness to sriracha, it's not possible to prove a negative.
I'm asking him to defend his claim not prove something absolutely.
You're going to have to help me out here jasecd. I'm not sure what claim you are referring to. If you mean the Police in general, well I've kept all my comments to the incident in the article and have not passed judgement on the Police as an institution. If you are talking about this incident in particular, well there I'm with you:
Maybe you have me confused with someone else?
Why no delete function?
You're right - you have a very similar username to the first poster, who I was taking issue with. Sorry about that - I've amended the post above to reflect this. It's probably redundant now but whatever...
I'm with Luxie on this one.
The police are given a description of two suspects, who have just stabbed someone and have been reported as fleeing along a specific path.
A police officer searching for said suspects encounters someone who meets the description and is is the area they were believed to be in.
Given that the suspects are known to have been armed and violent I'm not sure that a softly softly approach would have been the wisest.
Unfortunately for the cyclists they happened to have been in the same area as the suspects, using the same mode of transport as the suspects and matching the, admittedly quite basic, visual description of the suspects.
I was once stopped, searched and questioned for about 20 minutes because I matched the description of a burglary suspect. It was annoying but understandable.
But you weren't a minor who was assaulted and treated disrespectfully though were you?
I don't think anyone here is claiming they shouldn't have been stopped and questioned - the way the police did this is the issue.
Then the question becomes; what is the protocol for stopping a potentially armed and dangerous suspect in that situation?
Did the police officer deviate from that protocol?
If so, why?
Without that information we are all just speculating.
Once again we have this statement about "fleeing along a specific path". The only place I have seen this written is by Luxie, presumably reinventing things to make his colleagues look better. Luxie has so far declined my request for a reference to this point. All the report says is that somebody in the area was stabbed by black guys with "a bike". Neither the location, nor direction of travel were given. So the police just jumped the first black guys with bikes they saw. As for the protocol? First and foremost he should have identified himself as police, and from what we know, the black youth was unaware.
It's in the video that accompanies the story on various news sites.
A police officer states that the suspects were reported as fleeing along the canal path that the two cyclists were using.
I think you owe Luxie an apology.
We unfortunately don't have any video of the initial interaction between the young boy and the police, the boy stated that the police shouted at him but didn't give details as to what was said.
Link to article with video:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/28/black-teenager-on-family...
As a Police officer i am going to ask you what would you of done? I am going to give you the scenario as it has been given, I am sure there is a lot of what happened that isnt being said in this article.
A report comes in that nearby someone has been stabbed and 2 black males have been identified as suspects and are riding along the canal towpath last seen heading in your direction. You then see 2 black males riding towards you...
What do you do?
Avoid using unnecessary force and assaulting a thirteen year old boy?
what level is necessary? Potentially you are facing someone with a knife who has already attempted to kill someone? Their adrenaline is up, they most likely are frightened and they arent going to want to stop.
But that's not the scenario as given though is it?
You asked me what I'd do - I told you. I'd also try and be respectful and defuse what is undoubtedly a tense situation. It seems like the police acted in the opposite way here.
Look, we've been through this several times already; it's "defuse" not "diffuse".
Mmmmm. Chair leg.
I love winning a debate by pedantically pointing out a misspelling.
It isn't a mis-spelling, it's using the wrong word because they've heard defuse used and then use a homophone. And it wasn't an attempt to win the debate, just to correct bad English.
Well you've certainly made a valuable contribution to the debate and proved yourself the intellectual superior to the pair of us. Well done.
He's being deliberately pedantic in a tongue-in-cheek fashion (judging by his other posts which you might not be familiar with).
Why thank you kind sir. Nice to have one's intellectual superiority acknowledged occasionally. What are you a pair of exactly?
Depends what they meant. If they've misheard someone say 'defuse' as 'diffuse' and thought of the (emotional) intensity of the situation being lowered by providing a way for it to dissipate, and reused it in that way, then it is the meaning they intended, and therefore the right word.
No. The jury of road.cc, composed of reasonable people, pedants and chair leg chewers decided unanimously that it's defuse, and that diffuse doesn't actually make sense.
Don't worry I've edited it, making your initially needless and patronising comment now irrelevant.
Personally I don't pull people up on spelling or gramatical mistakes online as I know nothing of their eduactional standards or if they have a condition which makes writing harder. You're not contributing to the debate unless you believe a smug sense of self satisfaction is somehow a contirbution?
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