PAN HANDLED

We only recently became aware of the following, but because we believe that flagging up stories of police racism - swiftly followed by police brutality - should never go unpublished, we decided to run with it anyway.

Samuel, a steel pan musician, having busked in London for ten years, was having a regular busk at the South Kensington tube station on September 29th last year when two police came up and told him to move on. Being savvy of the busking laws, he asked if there had been a complaint, which cops said there had, so he agreed to leave and began packing up. When one policeman asked him if he had a permit, and Samuel replied (correctly) that the local council for that area didn’t issue permits, things spiralled downwards...

The policeman got arsey because Samuel, now engaged in packing up his instruments, appeared to be ignoring the snide remarks coming from the copper, who told him “Stop, I’m speaking to you”.  To which he replied “what’s wrong, little man?” (apparently the copper was short). The PC said “if you say ‘little man’ one more time, you’re nicked”. He did. He was then forcibly handcuffed, his steel drums getting trashed in the process, and CS was sprayed into his face. He was pushed face-down onto the pavement and assaulted as he vomited from ingesting the spray. More police arrived on the scene.

While on the ground, one copper put his knee into Samuel’s back and whispered, “You fucking black c**t, you black c**t”, and other police joined in the racial abuse as they stuck him in a van. Once at the station, Samuel asked which one had uttered these words to him, and all the officers looked at one another saying ‘not me’. Police claim there is no CCTV footage of the incident – yeah right, this is a central London tube station. He spent a whole night in a Notting Hill police station cell. He has facial scarring from the violent arrest.

Samuel was found guilty at West London Court on two counts of assaulting an officer, one count of resisting arrest, and on April 1st was sentenced to 70 hours of community service.

An appeal will only now be allowed if witnesses come forward or CCTV footage is found – if you happened to see this vile racist attack happen, contact us and we will pass the info on.

* See www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=177276456245&ref=ts