Firearms officers who rammed boy, 13, playing with water gun off his bike and arrested him acted ‘reasonably’
13 December 2024, 10:12 | Updated: 13 December 2024, 10:45
Firearms officers who rammed boy, 13, playing with water gun off his bike and arrested him acted ‘reasonably’, watchdog rules
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Armed police officers who rammed a black 13-year-old boy off his bike and handcuffed him ‘acted reasonably and correctly’ according to an independent watchdog.
An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that the firearms officers that rammed and arrested the boy acted ‘reasonably and correctly’.
At the time, the officers were accused of racial bias, and the boy’s mother said her son was targeted ‘for being black’.
The Met police said there was no evidence the child was treated differently due to his ethnicity or of adultification.
The young boy was handcuffed by cops after being taken down by the Met's marksmen in Hackney, east London, in July 2023.
He was having a water fight with his little sister at the time when an on-duty officer reported a potential firearms incident. One of the water pistols was blue and white, while the other was pink and white.
Armed units from the Met and City of London police rushed to the scene, where one officer was "aggressive", according to the boy's mother.
In a statement released through lawyers, the boy's mother said: "From the very day of this horrific incident, it was clear to me that the police would not have treated my son in the way that they did if he had been a white 13-year-old boy.
"From the outset, I made it clear that I expected any investigation into the incident to look at the very obvious role that my son's race played in the way in which he was treated by the police.
"Unfortunately, the IOPC have shown themselves to be completely incapable of understanding what race discrimination is and how it actually operates in the way that black children are treated by the police.
She said the IOPC did not want to investigate the incident at all at first, until they were pressured by media.
She added: "They only agreed to investigate after they were publicly embarrassed in the media and had to respond to the widespread support my family has received in the local community and from parents around the country.
The Alliance for Police Accountability (APA) also slammed the Met for their treatment of the young boy and criticised the watchdog's decision.
The young boy's mother described the incident as a "deeply traumatic experience for him, for me and for our family as a whole
"The attitude of the police to him - and to me - is show up in the words of the senior officer at the scene when I protested to him about the conduct of his officers," she told The Guardian.
"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?"
Lee Jasper, chairman of the APA, said: "This case exemplifies the failure of both the Metropolitan Police and the IOPC to protect black children and hold officers accountable for the harm they cause.
"A 13-year-old black boy playing with a water pistol was treated as an armed criminal, brutalised, and left traumatised.
"The trauma inflicted on Child X and his family is part of a broader, systemic problem of institutional racism and adultification in policing.
The APA has supported the boy's mother throughout the investigation, and is now calling for policing reforms.
Mr Jasper added: "How many more black children must suffer similar trauma before we see real change? We need immediate reforms to safeguard our children from these disproportionate and damaging interactions.
"Black communities are simply expected to suffer the realities of disproportionate policing and are left alone to deal with the deep trauma that is a consequence of disproportionate use of force and the routine denials of racism. Enough is enough.
Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, in charge of policing for Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said: “[The IOPC] has found officers acted correctly, both in deciding to send firearms officers to the scene and then how they dealt with the incident on arrival.
“At the time there was very real concern that a genuine firearm had been seen. Officers acted swiftly to deal with the potential threat, but then de-arrested the child as soon as it became clear he had been playing earlier with a water pistol.
“This incident shows just how difficult it can be to determine whether a firearm is real. The public would not wish us to hesitate in responding and risk a genuine firearm being used on the streets of London. We have a duty to protect the public from harm.
“I am pleased the IOPC has recognised this and the very difficult job our firearms officers do day in day out to keep London safe.
“Nonetheless, this incident was understandably extremely distressing for the boy involved as well as his family and we remain sorry for the impact upon them.”
