I went to the Notting Hill Carnival to have fun, a nice day out with friends. Instead, I witnessed some of the most racist police behaviour I have ever seen.
We arrived at about three o’clock, and the police presence felt heavy. Riot vans were parked on every corner, the Territorial Support Group (TSG) dotted the streets, and a tall police watchtower blocked the view of the parade. The Met had clearly made an effort to put as many of their black officers on the streets as possible, but they were still predominantly white by an enormous margin.
As we wandered, we started to see evidence of a major stop-and-search operation. As has become usual (yet thoroughly disproportionate) for mass gatherings, there was a blanket Section 60 in place. The police were systematic, periodically grabbing up to ten people from the crowd and searching them simultaneously. This was on Westbourne Grove, about 30 feet away from where the parade was happening. The police vans were parked on a side street.
Their targets were not completely at random. All of them were young. Almost all of them – with the exception of one search I witnessed – were black.
We stuck around to observe, and to make sure the people being searched knew their rights. The police were asking for names, and people do not need to give their names. We shouted this information as loudly as we could.
In one search, a young black man was led away to a police van (by officer with number ID number U5912). We followed, asking the police what had happened. We were informed that his name was “similar” to that of a suspect in a robbery; “only a few letters different,” the TSG officer said. As we waited by the van for further information, it started to rock.
Briefly, the man’s face appeared, a flash of terrified eyes, and he banged desperately on the window with his hands. We were ordered away from the van. “He’s not being beaten in there,” a TSG officer (ID number U5402) assured us, “he’s resisting.”
We stayed near the van, and the door was opened for a second before it drove away. I caught a glimpse inside, and it is a sight I wish I had not seen. Limp and face-down, I saw the man’s legs and feet. He wasn’t moving at all.
“That’s what you get when you resist,” said the officer.
We returned to the police lines, watching search after search of young black men wearing a “why me?” expression. In every search I witnessed, nothing was found, and those searched were sent on their way.
A friend asked the sergeant if there was a particular rationale behind who they were singling out for searches. “There’s a certain profile.” A pregnant pause. “Er, gang members. Under 25.”
It was clear that the searches were racially-motivated, and I have never felt my white privilege so keenly. We had spent hours by the police lines, causing a bit of a nuisance for them, and yet we has not been subjected to any of the treatment we witnessed. Even the threats of arrest for bothering them felt empty and half-hearted; we were not of interest.
Racially-targeted stop-and-searches were a key factor in the anger towards the police that sparked last summer’s riots, yet it is abundantly clear that the police have not learned anything from this and continue to pursue the provocative tactic, harassing people who were just trying to enjoy the carnival. Throughout the day, the police repeatedly infringed on the liberties of people whose only crime was being young and black.
I’d gone to the carnival to have fun. What I saw made that impossible.
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Zoe Stavri blogs at Another Angry Woman
13 Comments
Wrote up my experience at the Notting Hill Carnival the other day on TMP Online http://t.co/tg3Zd5E5 #acab
Blog post: I came to Notting Hill Carnival to party. What I saw made that impossible http://t.co/03oiIVuo
Wrote up my experience at the Notting Hill Carnival the other day on TMP Online http://t.co/tg3Zd5E5 #acab
I came to Notting Hill Carnival to party. What I saw made that impossible http://t.co/KNSx70KR by @stavvers #police #racism
[…] witnessed police violence and racism at the Notting Hill Carnival. I wrote up my experiences at The Multicultural Politic. Trigger warnings for descriptions of violence. Like this:LikeBe the first to like this. This […]
Ever thought it might be because a higher proportion of black people are in gangs. If you’re innocent you have nothing to fear from being searched.
I came to Notting Hill Carnival to party. What I saw made that impossible http://t.co/DsCWsIdX
What an utterly ridiculous article.
Do tell us what demographic has been responsible for the majority of crime at the Notting Hill Carnival for the last decade? Also for the majority of gang related crime in London? But according to you the police should ignore all that and not stop and search that particular group of people?
Also, what’s wrong with what the police officers did in the van? If you resist, officers have to use reasonable force. I doubt you’d be crying about this happening to overwhelmingly white people at football matches. Where, incidentally, police stop and search white people all day long for what to an onlooker would be “no reason” – but in actual fact is because they are dressed in certain designer labels associated with football hooligans etc. Ethnic minority fans at football matches are pretty much never stopped by police.
The reason the police didn’t arrest you is because it would have been a waste of their time and taken officers off the streets on a day which they were needed badly, used up two cells (most police cells in London are full on the days of the Notting Hill Carnival). Fair enough if they threatened you with arrest as they probably wanted you to stop bothering them and infringing on their ability to do their job.
Wonder who you would have run to if you’d been mugged at knife point by a gang of youths at the Notting Hill Carnival as has happened to countless innocent people over the years?
@Factual and @David: It’s pretty easy to point out that innocent people shouldn’t be harassed because of their race. I don’t even have to tell you that you are apologists for racial oppression. You’d wear that label like a badge of honor.
Perhaps all white people who go to football games should be subject to search for being white, no? Exactly–no.
Please let’s not descend to comments about white people being subject to racism. Talk like that’s just banal – and inaccurate about how power works in this society. Let’s rather understand that racism against people of African descent in the UK is alive and well and wears many different outfits, from education to employment to police brutality to many more.
However, let’s also understand the reality of gangs and, for example, streaming at Carnival, where a dozen or so youths push through the crowds in order to nick things. A friend who lives round the corner from me in W9 aka Carnival City, and who has struggled to put her two sons through the racist UK education system only to find their prospects at the other end are zero, had the following to say about Zoe’s article. Gangs exist, and the young men in them have to realise they can’t behave violently and brutally. The police do, and rightly, keep an eye out for gang members. But this is not to say that the brutal arrest witnessed by Zoe – did you get the police’ officer numbers, Zoe, or weren’t the numbers visible? – is in any way excusable. Nor is it to say that every young black man at Carnival is a gang member, which Zoe’s article implies the police believe. Nor is it to say that Carnival is any longer a free and easy street party, created initially as a response to racism in the Notting Hill area, as a response to slavery, rather than today’s highly charged commercial enterprise with attendant high tensions and pressure and security.
Nor is it to say that gang members are responsible for their circumstances in which everything is against them. They’re not.
Society has to be changed, and drastically, to eliminate the poverty and zero youth facilities and racism that drop so many young black people in society’s cesspit. But they aren’t victims of their circumstances either. None of us are. There are in fact alternatives to going to Carnival in order to nick stuff, if that’s your intention. You can play mas, go with a band and therefore protect yourself from the police, enjoy yourself.
Ben F – were ALL black people at the Notting Hill Carnival subject to being stopped and searched? No. The ones identified as high risk individuals were. Just as happens to white people at football grounds up and down the country on match days, as happens to white people in areas known for white gangs in cities like Liverpool daily, because they fit the profile of people known to be causing trouble. If you attended a for example Chelsea V Tottenham football match you would see white people being stopped and searched, kettled, held in pubs, escorted away from certain areas all day long.
Judith the point about “steaming” is what I was getting at. It is known this happens every year at the NHC, should the police ignore that and not stop and search people who fit the profile of those who come to the event to rob people?
@Judith, how is the UK education racist? I’m assuming you mean towards minorities, heaven forbid that so-called positive discrimination could be deemed racist.
@Judith, how is the UK education system racist? I’m assuming you mean towards minorities, heaven forbid that so-called positive discrimination could be deemed racist.