Boy with water pistol arrested by armed police 'for being black', mother says

The mother of a 13-year-old boy who was arrested while playing with a water pistol says he was targeted “for being black”.

Officers would not have treated her son in the same way had he been a “white 13-year-old boy”, she added.

The teenager, described only as Child X, was in the streets outside his home with a younger sibling in Hackney, east London, when a uniformed officer reported a potential firearms incident.

Armed units from the Met and City of London Police were sent to the scene, according to the Alliance for Police Accountability (APA).

A police van “rammed” him off his bicycle “without any warning”, Bhatt Murphy Solicitors said – “knocking him to the ground”.

He was then “surrounded by armed officers who pointed their firearms at him, handcuffed and arrested him on suspicion of being in possession of a firearm”, the legal firm added.

The boy was de-arrested at the scene.

His mother said she felt “very angry” about his treatment by the police.

In a statement issued by Bhatt Murphy, she said: “The attitude of the police to him – and to me – is shown up in the words of the senior officer at the scene when I protested to him about the conduct of his officers: he told me I was lucky that they had not arrested my son!

“For what? For playing with a brightly coloured plastic water gun with his younger sibling on the streets behind our home?

“For being a black boy on the streets of Hackney?

“I know – and the police know – that they would not have treated my son in the way they did if he had been a white 13-year-old boy.

“I know that they would not have treated me with the contempt shown towards me or described me as ‘aggressive’ if I was not black.”

She said she felt “broken” by what had happened and “distraught” because she was unable to protect her boy.

She commented: “How can I ever tell (my children) that they can turn to the police for help?”

The borough commander arranged for her to view the body-worn video footage from the officers involved but she found it “too painful and traumatic to see what they did to my son”.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, who is in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said he had apologised to the family.

He said: “This incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved as well as the rest of his family.

“We know it may cause public concern and we want to help the public understand why we responded in the way we did.

“This does not in any way detract from our recognition of the trauma caused to the boy, for which I apologised soon afterwards to his family.”

He added: “Such is the nature of the threat from firearms that the College of Policing is clear that officers should treat all firearms as real and loaded until proven otherwise.

“The police have a positive legal obligation under human rights legislation to protect life, which shapes our approach to responding to suspected firearms.”

An internal investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no misconduct had been committed by the officers involved.

A further complaint accusing them of racial bias is still being investigated by the force’s standards department.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog stated that the Met could carry out both investigations itself.

The boy’s mother said: “How can I be expected to place my faith in the police to investigate themselves?”

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