Police in London has sent on an indefinite suspension one of her officers on racial allegations after footage emerged of him kneeling on the side of a Black suspect’s head and neck.
The footage of the arrest in north London on Thursday shows two officers holding down the handcuffed black man.
At the beginning of the clip, one of the officers (white) is seen using too much force on the man’s neck with his knee and his hand is on the head of the victim, who is on a pavement on his side while another officer of East Asian ethnicity assisted in the restraint.
“Get off me … get off my neck, I haven’t done anything wrong, get off my neck,”victim screams for help.
One of the two officers asks, “Are you going to behave yourself?” He is told to stay down.
The video footage later shows the suspect sitting and speaking to the police officers.
Police said he (the victim) was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of affray and possession of an offensive weapon, following reports of a fight, and remains in custody.
The incident was referred for investigation to the UK’s independent police watchdog by the Metropolitan police. London Mayor Sadiq Khan describes an incident as a “distressing” calling for expedite investigations.
“The video footage that I have seen today and is circulating on social media is extremely disturbing,” Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Steve House said in a statement on Friday.
He adds that some of the techniques used cause great concerns since they are not taught in police training.
The incident is not a new in the history of Blackman’s race. On 25 May for instance, white police officers in Minneapolis US brutalized George Floyd an American African in a similar manner which resulted into his death.
Floyd’s death prompted hundreds of thousand protesters storm different cities of the world including London demanding for racial justice for Floyd and the blackface in US, Europe in a peaceful protest dubbed: Black Lives Matter. These toppled statutes of colonial masters and those they suspected of practing Racism across the globe.
