Two hundred people turned out to protest in Tottenham this Saturday (19 December) against the violent assault on Black children in Tottenham by police last Tuesday.
The event was organised by local activists and supported by Tottenham BLM, Enfield BLM, Haringey Stand Up To Racism, Haringey Extinction Rebellion and BLMM.
The mixed crowd heard from Andrew Boateng (his son was assaulted by police while on a charity ride for a community-police charity), Deliah Mattis (Enfield BLM), Sasha (from UK Black Panther), Vivek Lehal (from Stand Up To Racism), Tottenham activists Ken Hinds and Gary McFarlane, Nathaniel from the the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, local black activists Empress (and AAPRP member), to name a few.
Local Labour councillor Matt White also spoke and sent solidarity greetings of support from the Labour group on Haringey Council.
Black Lives Matter Movement is calling for another protest at Tottenham police station to demand the sacking of violent police and the release of body cam videos to the public, following the attack by police officers on Black children in Tottenham last Tuesday 8th December.
Met police claims that three officers were injured in an incident outside Park View School in Tottenham have been condemned as ‘pure fiction’.
Ken Hinds, Chair of Haringey Independent Stop and Search Monitoring, viewed the body cams and expressed concerns about the police statement that was released to the public.
Another video has emerged (see below) that shows the police officer who featured prominently in the first public video, acting in a bullying manner and pushing members of the public and then holding a youngster in a dangerous headlock and then repeatedly punching him in the head.
Is it police practice to hold someone in a headlock and punch them in the head?
On Friday the 11 December Hinds attended a meeting called by Borough Commander Treena Fleming at which the body cam footage was shown.
The police statement said they were attacked and had to make a circle around the officer who was conducting the stop and search. The children were described in threatening tones as “four males”, when in fact they were kids picking up certificates from their former school.
The 16-year-old who was assaulted by the police was in hospital for several hours following the incident.
The youth taken to hospital by the police was subsequently held overnight at the police station.
Because of the seriousness of the incident, the borough commander enabled members of the monitoring group to view camera footage. It was followed by a ‘Gold meeting’ at which the police held talks with local councillors and other community stakeholders.
Local MP David Lammy was meant to have attended the Gold meeting but did not appear.
Body cam videos expose police lies
Local BLMM activist Gary McFarlane said: “The officer seen punching the Black youngster in the video took himself to the hospital as part of a ploy to build a false narrative – a narrative that is pure fiction but has since been repeated by the media as if it were the truth, when in fact it is a pack of lies.”
From the Guardian to the Evening Standard, the media has parroted the police statement uncritically, saying the video “appears to show” the officer punching the teenager, as if somehow that isn’t what the video shows.
Fleming said that the original video recorded by a witness only shows a “snapshot in time and the wider context is not immediately obvious”.
But the wider context is the police launching an attack on defenceless children – one fought back in defence of the youth in the headlock. The children were at the school to pick up GCSE certificates and were conversing outside the gates when the police attacked them.
The teenagers are now all on bail, with the youth at the centre of the police violence left traumatised by the assault.
The Met lead on stop and search, Commander Jane Connors, held a meeting with community advocates on Monday, at which urgent answers will be sought about the routine use of force during stops and why the Met routinely handcuffs Black youth when they stop and search them.
Four youngsters were arrested by the police and have been released on bail, but it is the police that should be under arrest and charged with assault as well as misconduct in public office given the allegations related here.
Activists are planning a protest at Tottenham police station next weekend in order to keep up the pressure on the police and to demand justice for the youth.
BLMM demands the immediate release of all body cam footage into the public domain and the immediate sacking of all the police officers involved in the assault and the ongoing cover up.
More Tottenham police outrages: Taser report delayed, man dies in canal after chase
In disturbing developments that has just leaked out, the finding of a report into Jordan Walker Brown, who was tasered by Tottenham police and fell off a wall as a result and is now in a wheel chair for the rest of his life, has been delayed. The report was meant to have been released this month but has now been moved to January.
That incident was followed by the wrongful detention of Black youth out cycling with his Dad for a police-community charity. Huugo Boateng was injured by police in that incident.
Since then a man died after ending up in the River Lea canal after being chased by Tottenham police.
All money can be sent to Community Against Violence c/o Ken Hinds. More details to follow.
Well done to the QPR team for standing up to the racist.
But the club itself had previously (in September) put out a statement saying they would not be taking the knee but has now reversed that decision. Looks like there was a rebellion in the ranks. Excellent!
After scoring a goal against Millwall, Ilias Chair (and Bright Osayi-Samuel) celebrated by taking the knee.
As for Millwall FC, well what can we say?
Basically they bottled it on the official side, after a minority of fans booed ‘take the knee’ last weekend. The official response was to get players to stand in a circle holding hands, but many individuals ‘took the knee’ anyway.
Backlash from racist Tories against Take The Knee solidarity protests
There is clearly a backlash coming from the government, the right-wing media, the more backward elements at the top of some football clubs and the, thankfully, much smaller forces of the far right, to try and push back against anti-racism’s successes with the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement.
They will not succeed. Black and white unite and fight! Solidarity forever!
A minority of Millwall FC fans covered themselves in ignominy at the weekend when they booed black and white footballers ‘taking the knee’ to show solidarity with the fight for racial justice.
To its credit Millwall FC has chastised the booing racists among its supporters. The club said it was “dismayed and saddened” by the actions of the racist minority.
Across the country fans were returning to football stadia for the first time since the Covid pandemic began.
Some of the racist thugs associated with the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), thought they would try a similar stunt at Spurs but instead supporters applauded the take the knee gesture of the football pros.
Similar take the knee happenings at matches across the country went off without a hitch, which is what makes the Millwall incident all the worse.
However, despite all right thinking people reacting with horror, that wasn’t the reaction of one Tory minister – George Eustice, the minister for the environment.
When asked about the racist incident and asked to condemn it, he failed to do so.
Asked on Sky News what he thought of the incident, he was more concerned with attacking BLM and fomenting ‘culture wars’ than he was with standing up to racism: “Well, look, I didn’t see that event.
“The issue of race and racial discrimination is something that we all take very, very seriously.
“My personal view is that Black Lives Matter, capital B, L and M, is actually a political movement that is different to what most of us believe in which is standing up for racial equality.
“But look, each individual can take their own choices about how they reflect this and I know a lot of people feel quite strongly about taking that approach.”
The government seems intent on doing its best to emulate Trump in whipping up racism.
Eustice’s alignment with the far-right is worrying, as is Priti Patel’s insistence in likening lawyers doing their jobs as “lefty activists”.
Patel even went as far as to say those campaigning to stop the deportation of people who came to this country from Jamaica when they were kids, as being an insult to the Windrush generation, when it is her government that created that scandal in the first place and of which the latest deportation flight to Jamaica is a part.
Take the knee: Tories trying to whip up racial division
Ok, so not everyone wants to take part in ‘take the knee’ events, and that is their prerogative, but to boo is to make an explicit statement of hostility, which can only be described as an endorsement of racism.
Tory minister James Cleverly said it was wrong to boo ‘taking the knee’, but then went on to make apologies for the racists:
‘Anyone who believes it was a racist act should read the views of those who booed and see they were doing it in reaction to the war memorials and statues of Churchill defaced by the BLM organisation and the extreme political views they hold and for which “taking the knee” is associated with.’
But there is more than one BLM organisation for a start, and the person or persons who wrote the graffiti on the Churchill statue were individuals on a demonstration of thousands
In truth Churchill was a racist – this is a statement of fact. But the Tories and their far right supporters are really just looking for excuses to undermine the movement.
The Tories are trying to play divide and rule and spread the lie that working class people are some how hostile to racism, implying that there are two working classes – one white and one black.
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