Original article by Anita Mureithi republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
The police watchdog has been called in over claims a Met Police officer “shoved” a nine-year-old boy at the Palestine solidarity march on Armistice Day.
The force referred the complaint to the IOPC on Friday, hours after being contacted by openDemocracy about the incident.
The boy and his parents were leaving the march for Palestine on 11 November when an officer allegedly pushed the child, leaving the boy and his parents distraught. His parents, Abu and Saheema – who asked us not to use their surname, shared a video of the aftermath of the incident with openDemocracy last week. In it, Abu can be heard asking the officer: “Why did you push a child?”, to which he replies: “You brought your child to a violent protest… think about what you’re doing.”
The Met said: “We are aware of the social media post and have received a public complaint. We are keen to fully investigate the matter and have urged the complainant to pass on any relevant footage. Due to the level of public interest, we have voluntarily referred the matter to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC). It would not be appropriate to discuss further at this time.”
A spokesperson for the IOPC confirmed that the watchdog received a voluntary complaint referral from the Met on Friday and said: “We are currently assessing the referral and will decide whether any further action is required from us”.
The boy’s mother told openDemocracy she hopes the watchdog assesses the family’s claim “promptly and in an unbiased manner”.
The incident happened as the family walked over Vauxhall Bridge on their way home from the march. Their tired son was walking a few paces ahead of his parents and sat down on the kerb.
Noticing officers walking in his direction, he got up – and it’s at this point that his parents say he was “shoved” out of the way by an officer who told him to move.
Saheema told openDemocracy the “force and aggression” used by the officer had their son “in absolute bits, crying and holding his shoulder”.
The child was taken to hospital after the incident where – according to Abu and Saheema – a children’s specialist confirmed that he suffered a soft-tissue injury on his shoulder.
Original article by Anita Mureithi republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.