Police strip search 15-year old in school

[Bahnhof Strasse]

During 2020/2021 there were 299 ‘further searches’ — which includes strip-search activity — conducted in Hackney by the Met’s Central East Basic Command Unit.

The review panel found that over this period 25 children under the age of 18 were subject to ‘further searches’. Nineteen were male and 18 were handcuffed. The reasons for the search primarily related to suspicions about drugs, followed by weapons and stolen property.

Twenty-two of the searches, 88 per cent, were negative and no further action was recorded in 20. Fifteen of the children searched were black, two white, six Asian and two Arab or North African.

 

[dessiato]

I keep thinking about this. Aren't they supposed to have a warrant, or is that only HMRC doing searches?

 

[not henry]

I keep thinking about this. Aren't they supposed to have a warrant, or is that only HMRC doing searches?

No the opposite the HMRC can do what they like compared to police

 

[dessiato]

No the opposite the HMRC can do what they like compared to police

So the HMRC can strip search me, just because...?

And the police?

That's so utterly fucked up.

 

[Edie]

Sorry for the derail. As you know, I have a 9yr old lad and don’t live a million miles from you so want to be aware of this shit. I read a book about county lines, which scared the living bejeezus out of me.

It was my fault. And it’s a good idea to educate yourself about how teenage lads get sucked into crime because in my view it’s just child exploitation (esp of working class kids) and not entirely their fault. I think there is a role for good services like youth services (non existent in leeds- they have a mobile van that parks up temporarily if there’s a problem), youth offending (these are good people who really try and work systemically with families with early help plans), and good policing (like PC Groves).

The question really is (and the point of annecdote) why is it my white lads had that frankly supportive and positive experience of the police, and black Girl Q was horribly abused And black boys are intimidated and harassed on the streets by the force that’s meant to be protecting them. That institutional and outright gross racism blatantly on display constantly.

I won’t forget that my lads two best mates, both lovely black young men who still give me a kiss when they see me, both from single mum households like my boys both had to be in at 9:30 every night even in summer. Because their Mums knew. They knew they were both more at risk of street violence and more at risk from the police. They told me this outright. And that’s both sad and outrageous.

 

[Pickman's model]

It was my fault. And it’s a good idea to educate yourself about how teenage lads get sucked into crime because in my view it’s just child exploitation (esp of working class kids) and not entirely their fault. I think there is a role for good services like youth services (non existent in leeds- they have a mobile van that parks up temporarily if there’s a problem), youth offending (these are good people who really try and work systemically with families with early help plans), and good policing (like PC Groves).

The question really is (and the point of annecdote) why is it my white lads had that frankly supportive and positive experience of the police, and black Girl Q was horribly abused And black boys are intimidated and harassed on the streets by the force that’s meant to be protecting them. That institutional and outright gross racism blatantly on display constantly.

I won’t forget that my lads two best mates, both lovely black young men who still give me a kiss when they see me, both from single mum households like my boys both had to be in at 9:30 every night even in summer. Because their Mums knew. They knew they were both more at risk of street violence and more at risk from the police. They told me this outright. And that’s both sad and outrageous.

it's my experience that cops don't like young people of any ethnicity very much - that most white friends of my youth had been harassed by them but obvs not to the extent black people are. I wonder what communications pass between your school cop and the wider police force - as far as I can see, a major purpose of the programme of installing cops in schools is much the same as the purpose of having neighborhood policing teams or police liaison officers on demonstrations, namely the collection of intelligence on young people, communities and protestors.

Like you I expect everyone here has a good cop story - even the most acab people I've met have bumped into a decent cop on their travels. But while they might be amicable to your face, they might do all the good work you report on this thread, they're feeding information into the policing system somewhere and other officers will be using that information to make judgements on the young people they communicate about. I don't think police forces embed officers in schools or elsewhere out of a spirit of altruism.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The question really is (and the point of annecdote) why is it my white lads had that frankly supportive and positive experience of the police, and black Girl Q was horribly abused And black boys are intimidated and harassed on the streets by the force that’s meant to be protecting them. That institutional and outright gross racism blatantly on display constantly.

It's hard to wrap your head round. If this isn't something you experience, then in order to really get the message you have to abandon some key assumptions; namely that people are all on some level inherently decent and that the state is a fundamentally protective and benevolent force. Coming to the understanding that those assumptions are false is a painful thing. So it's pretty understandable that some people will rationalise and quibble and deny and generally do all sorts of mental backflips to keep pretending that things are generally fine, or that we've sorted the problem out now, or that it's just a few stray wrong 'uns who are the issue.

I'm aware that I 'knew' a lot about police racism from various sources before I really felt the reality of it. That feeling came not from journalism or books or movies or even personal testimonies from people I knew, but from seeing stuff with my own eyes. Seeing the one brown person plucked out of a crowd of white protestors and beaten to the ground. Seeing someone I loved wake up shouting in fear every night from PTSD after 12 hellish hours in police custody. Many white people may never see those things; they may 'know' about these problems without ever really believing they're real. On one hand I can't really blame them, as we none of us have more than our own experience to go on and we all protect ourselves from horrible truths in all sorts of ways. Then again, when someone is at the point of ignoring the voices of hundreds or thousands of people, the point where they'll go to any lengths to reject the extremely fucking simple statement 'black lives matter', that's when I find it hard to believe that they don't have at least some awareness of what they're doing. That they haven't on some level weighed the whole thing up and decided not to care.

 

[Edie]

it's my experience that cops don't like young people of any ethnicity very much - that most white friends of my youth had been harassed by them but obvs not to the extent black people are. I wonder what communications pass between your school cop and the wider police force - as far as I can see, a major purpose of the programme of installing cops in schools is much the same as the purpose of having neighborhood policing teams or police liaison officers on demonstrations, namely the collection of intelligence on young people, communities and protestors.

Like you I expect everyone here has a good cop story - even the most acab people I've met have bumped into a decent cop on their travels. But while they might be amicable to your face, they might do all the good work you report on this thread, they're feeding information into the policing system somewhere and other officers will be using that information to make judgements on the young people they communicate about. I don't think police forces embed officers in schools or elsewhere out of a spirit of altruism.

Dunno about that. Sounds a little on the paranoid side. I just don’t think it’s that coordinated. I mean our state schools and the NHS are also horrifically racist. Teachers are bad, but medics are the fucking worst the racism there will kill far more black people than coppers. So in my view it’s not really linked to ‘surveillance’ or shit like that.

 

[Pickman's model]

Dunno about that. Sounds a little on the paranoid side. I just don’t think it’s that coordinated. I mean our state schools and the NHS are also horrifically racist. Teachers are bad, but medics are the fucking worst the racism there will kill far more black people than coppers. So in my view it’s not really linked to ‘surveillance’ or shit like that.

You can always find out by doing a subject access request for your son to see what information they have on him. But in a society in which a prominent and elected green politician has had her protest activities logged by the met and where victims of gang violence have their details added to a gang 'matrix' I'm not as confident as you that surveillance doesn't enter into it. Yeh sure the NHS may kill more people than the cops but the cops can casually blight lives and do so on a daily basis: as in the case this thread's about

 

[Sasaferrato]

No the opposite the HMRC can do what they like compared to police

Not so.

VAT inspectors can kick your door in and seize your records, but they cannot search your body.

 

[not henry]

Not so.

VAT inspectors can kick your door in and seize your records, but they cannot search your body.

This is a pointless argument for I don't know why. If they have already kicked your door in (without a warrant and legal) then telling them not to search you will probably stop them in their tracks

 

[likesfish]

HMRC for historical reasons have very wide reaching powers but don't do day to day policing so don't abuse them as much.

The problem with policing is they deal with chaos and mayhem every single day so get desensitised to it. So if your not a "regular customer" and you end up in their clutches things may go badly for you. As you demanding your rights
Is seen as being bolshy.
While your repeat offender knows the rules of the game.

Not that the in any way Justifys the treatment of Girl Q that was an interrogation tactic straight out of Amnesty internationals big book of how to be a bastard.
Not how you treat juveniles unless your an unthinking moron. If she suspected of smelling of "cannabis" in a fucking exam???.
Doesn't appear high check her bag pockets that's the end of it stage 2 search

 

[wtfftw]

Let her do the exam first as well ffs.

 

[wtfftw]

Where's the fucking humanity?

 

[existentialist]

Where's the fucking humanity?

Humanity???

 

[SpookyFrank]

Where's the fucking humanity?

This kind of thing is not about robotic officiousness, but sheer cruelty. That sadly is all too human.

 

[Edie]

This kind of thing is not about robotic officiousness, but sheer cruelty. That sadly is all too human.

It is cruel. What you said about having to abandon some assumptions you have about people being fundamentally good, I struggle with that. I think in my job I see the best in folk, whereas the police relentlessly see the fucking worst. I don’t for a minute think that excuses this cruelty and abuse but maybe it does explain it. I dunno.

 

[eatmorecheese]

I just thought I'd 'offload' a few anonymised examples of situations/incidents that have troubled me regarding police interaction with young people I've worked with (as it's a Sunday morning...)

A 17 year old young black man. We knew he was gang involved and were working to move him away from this. He used to say, 'if the police know what I'm doing, why don't they pick me up?' Two days after his 18th birthday he was arrested. Police had consulted with immigration, who figured out that unlike his mother and siblings, his documentation for citizenship wasn't in place. He was deported to Jamaica, a country he left when he was one year old and had no support network in. Never charged with anything.

Doing street-based youth work late at night. Witnessing two six foot tall coppers literally slamming 13 year old boys against a wall to search them in a park and swearing aggressively at them. When the coppers realised I and a colleague were observing this, they suddenly went ultra-polite and calmed the fuck down.

A sixteen year old girl who was always getting arrested for drunk and disorderly. Every time she was put in the wagon she would strip all her clothes off and scream, 'get that man away from me'. Turns out she was strip-searched, by six male officers when aged 14 and traumatised by this. She decided when arrested subsequently to make the choice to strip herself, rather than let the coppers do it. She was also searched at the custody suite without an appropriate adult present because they believed 'she might harm herself'. I then made safeguarding referrals for her based on the actual and potential harm the police were inflicting on her, physical and emotional.

And on and on. By the Met and elsewhere in the UK. And yes, I have worked with good, thoughtful, reflective and pragmatic coppers too. But systemically, it's fucked.

 

[Edie]

I just thought I'd 'offload' a few anonymised examples of situations/incidents that have troubled me regarding police interaction with young people I've worked with (as it's a Sunday morning...)

A 17 year old young black man. We knew he was gang involved and were working to move him away from this. He used to say, 'if the police know what I'm doing, why don't they pick me up?' Two days after his 18th birthday he was arrested. Police had consulted with immigration, who figured out that unlike his mother and siblings, his documentation for citizenship wasn't in place. He was deported to Jamaica, a country he left when he was one year old and had no support network in. Never charged with anything.

Doing street-based youth work late at night. Witnessing two six foot tall coppers literally slamming 13 year old boys against a wall to search them in a park and swearing aggressively at them. When the coppers realised I and a colleague were observing this, they suddenly went ultra-polite and calmed the fuck down.

A sixteen year old girl who was always getting arrested for drunk and disorderly. Every time she was put in the wagon she would strip all her clothes off and scream, 'get that man away from me'. Turns out she was strip-searched, by six male officers when aged 14 and traumatised by this. She decided when arrested subsequently to make the choice to strip herself, rather than let the coppers do it. She was also searched at the custody suite without an appropriate adult present because they believed 'she might harm herself'. I then made safeguarding referrals for her based on the actual and potential harm the police were inflicting on her, physical and emotional.

And on and on. By the Met and elsewhere in the UK. And yes, I have worked with good, thoughtful, reflective and pragmatic coppers too. But systemically, it's fucked.

Brilliant post

 

[seeformiles]

I was illegally forcibly strip searched in handcuffs by the police when I was 16. Not my favourite memory but it certainly informed my view of them since (i.e. the bastards just do what the fuck they like if they think they can get away with it). Must be even worse for this poor girl.

 

[dessiato]

Reading these stories I think of my sister who has been arrested and searched a number of times from about 15. She's talked about having been raped, but will not talk about her experiences being arrested/taken into custody.

If you can talk more easily about rape, than you can about being arrested...

 

[SpookyFrank]

It is cruel. What you said about having to abandon some assumptions you have about people being fundamentally good, I struggle with that. I think in my job I see the best in folk, whereas the police relentlessly see the fucking worst. I don’t for a minute think that excuses this cruelty and abuse but maybe it does explain it. I dunno.

Funny how they only seem to see the worst in black folk though eh? Never see the worst in politicians, oligarchs or other coppers. Not even coppers nicknamed 'the rapist'.

I don't think it's an excuse or an explanation tbh. Ambulance workers see some horrendous behaviour in their work, as do social workers. I'm not gonna say either of those professions are racism-free but I think it's fair to say they have a far better standard of conduct than the filth.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

When I was 17 my mate was walking down the street smoking a joint (daft) and two coppers came past and nicked him and although I wasn’t formally arrested I was taken along for the ride. At the pig sty I was sat in custody, not processed in any way, didn’t even take a note of my name when a young plod comes past and the sergeant asks him if he’s ever done a strip search. Plod says no so sergeant says, “do one on him, will teach him to keep better company.” And he and another one took me to a room and made me strip naked. The whole situation was explicitly designed to punish me via humiliation and bow to their power. No record of my detention or forcible stripping was made.

 

[seeformiles]

When I was 17 my mate was walking down the street smoking a joint (daft) and two coppers came past and nicked him and although I wasn’t formally arrested I was taken along for the ride. At the pig sty I was sat in custody, not processed in any way, didn’t even take a note of my name when a young plod comes past and the sergeant asks him if he’s ever done a strip search. Plod says no so sergeant says, “do one on him, will teach him to keep better company.” And he and another one took me to a room and made me strip naked. The whole situation was explicitly designed to punish me via humiliation and bow to their power. No record of my detention or forcible stripping was made.

Cunts

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Big turnout at the town hall today.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

 

[Mation]

Why is everyone assuming she did smell of weed? She said she was held responsible for a smell, which suggests that in fact it wasn't her.

That part is important, too.

In any case, those utter, utter cunts. Sack the fucking lot of them.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Apparently the not-great MP for Hackney South, Meg Hillier was booed by the crowd at the rally yesterday:





(I was getting a coffee at the time so missed it, doh).

 

[Pickman's model]

Apparently the not-great MP for Hackney South, Meg Hillier was booed by the crowd at the rally yesterday:





(I was getting a coffee at the time so missed it, doh).

glad she's not my mp

sorry not to see you yesterday, saw durruti02 and a couple of other faces i hadn't caught up with for a while

 

[Fozzie Bear]

glad she's not my mp

sorry not to see you yesterday, saw durruti02 and a couple of other faces i hadn't caught up with for a while

Yep I saw him and he said he had seen you!