Bianca Williams: Athlete accuses police of racial profiling after vehicle search – BBC Sport This is one of the many reasons why the Black Lives Matter movement has sprung up and become active. It’s because of events like this by police who continuously use their ‘stop and search’ powers to harass black people on an an assumption that all black people are involved in illegal drugs or are gang members. Especially if they are driving an expensive looking vehicle. Subconscious or direct conscious policing by a largely white Metropolitan police force. This is why change needs to occur now.
British sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner have accused the Metropolitan Police of racial profiling and acting violently towards them. They fear they were targeted because they are black and drive a Mercedes. An assumption that they must be in a ‘gang’. Police appear to stop black people on a daily basis to search their vehicle for drugs, assuming if they stop and search them enough, they will eventually find the illegal drugs that must be there. Because in the minds of the mainly white police forces, black people are, of course, involved in crime.
Officers were patrolling in the Maida Vale area because of an, apparent, increase in youth violence. Police say the vehicle had been on the wrong side of the road and the driver sped off when asked to stop. A police statement said: “Officers from the Directorate of Professional Standards have reviewed both footage from social media, and the body-worn video of the officers, and are satisfied that there is no concern around the officers’ conduct.” Why were the black people in the car handcuffed?
In most cases in England and Wales, police can only stop and search you (or your vehicle) if they have “reasonable grounds” that you might be carrying: Illegal drugs, stolen property, carrying a weapon, Something that could be used to carry out a crime, like a crowbar! Reasonable grounds for stopping someone cannot be based on race or whether the person is a known criminal. But, that might not, necessarily stop some police from doing this.
The Met Police said, there had been an increase in violent crime in the area and that the car in question was driving suspiciously. Bianca Williams denies this. If you are stopped, you have a number of rights. This includes being told the reason why you are being stopped, what they expect to find on you and information on how to receive records of the search. Williams and 25-year-old Dos Santos, who are training for next year’s Tokyo Olympics, told the Times they plan to formally complain at being pulled from their car for a weapons search when returning home from a training session. They say police handcuffed them while their three-month-old son was on board and carried out a search that lasted 45 minutes. Dos Santos, who plans to meet lawyers on Monday, said that he had been stopped by police as many as 15 times since they changed their car to a Mercedes in November 2017. The police statement said, that at about 13:25 BST on Saturday officers from the Territorial Support Group “witnessed a vehicle with blacked-out windows that was driving suspiciously, including driving on the wrong side of the road”. The statement added: “They indicated for it to stop but it failed to do so and made off at speed. The officers caught up with the vehicle when it stopped on Lanhill Road. The driver initially refused to get out of the car.” After searching Williams and Dos Santos, and the vehicle, nothing was found and no arrests were made. Williams, the fifth-fastest British woman in history over 200m, and Dos Santos said that a written report given to them by police did not mention driving on the wrong side of the road, and that where they stopped is a single car-width road.
Maybe they should have stopped immediately when told too, but the fear of being stopped by police might have made them drive on.
The incident was first raised on social media by their coach, 1992 Olympic 100m champion Linford Christie, who accused the police of abusing their power and institutionalised racism.
This seems to be a consistant theme for black people and, not just, in the capital. Check out the video on the bbc sport website page and decide for yourselves. But in my mind, as a white blind individual, it appears to me that the proportion of stop and search policy is improportionate to black people compared to white people. There is still too much racial bias and racial profiling within British police forces. Change needs to occur more quickly, throughout all UK institutions to bring about fairer policing, justice and balance throughout our entire society. People of Black, Asian and all ethnic minority backgrounds should be treated equally.
Thanks for reading. Have a good evening. Tony
