This is the last article you can read this month
You can read more article this month
You can read more articles this month
Sorry your limit is up for this month
Reset on:
Please help support the Morning Star by subscribing here
HUNDREDS of people demanded an end to police brutality outside Tottenham police station at the weekend — marking nine years since the killing of Mark Duggan.
Organised by youth group 4FrontProject, protesters put together a list of demands calling for the end of excessive force, Tasers, stop and search and the disproportionate use of handcuffing those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds (BAME).
Victims of high-profile police brutality incidents including rapper Wretch, whose 62-year-old father was recently Tasered by cops, spoke out about BAME communities being “over-policed and under-protected.”
The rapper, whose real name is Jermaine Scott, had posted a video of the incident in June which showed his father tumbling down the stairs after being Tasered.
He told the crowd: “I feel that as a community, as a people, we are over-policed and under-protected.
“We don’t feel protected. My dad did not feel protected. The police are supposed to protect and serve. When they came into the house, what exactly were they serving with that Taser?”
The mother of a 12-year-old boy who was arrested over a toy gun also spoke to the crowds.
Mina Agyepong said her son Kai “is traumatised and he is angry” after police raided their home in the night in July.
Police had been told by a passerby that they had seen a black male holding a firearm on the sofa.
She added: “I worry now what his relationship is going to be with the police — that sense of distrust. Stop criminalising our children.”
The protest marked nine years since the London riots, which were triggered by the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan on August 4 2011.
And Labour MP Dawn Butler said on Twitter today that she had been stopped by the police while driving through east London.
Ms Butler said: “I JUST GOT STOPPED BY THE POLICE DRIVING THROUGH HACKNEY... MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW...
@metpoliceuk. I recorded the whole incident.”
Details of the incident were not clear by the time the Star went to press.
Ms Butler has been a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and calling out institutional racism.
As a result she has faced a torrent of online racist abuse and has been force to close her surgery in Brent due to death threats.