Black police officer lodges complaint after ‘clearly racist’ colleagues stopped his car
A black Metropolitan Police inspector has made a formal complaint against his colleagues after they stopped him while driving home from work.
Charles Ehikioya was pulled over by Met officers in Croydon, south London on May 23, the force said.
A spokesperson said the officers decided to stop him on the way home from his shift because they thought he was speeding and may have run through a red light.
But Mr Ehikioya, who has worked for the Met for more than two decades, has lodged a complaint of racial harassment against the officers.
He wrote in his letter: ‘The officers did not believe or did not care that I was an officer, because I am black.
‘They are both clearly racist police officers pretending to be polite whilst falsely accusing me without any evidence whatsoever of having committed serious criminal and road traffic act offences.’
A Met Police spokesperson confirmed the force received an internal complaint regarding a vehicle stop on May 24.
‘On 23 May, a driver was stopped by police while driving his vehicle. The driver, who is a black man, alleged that the stop was the result of racial profiling,’ the spokesperson said.
‘As is usual practice, local enquiries were undertaken by the professional standards unit.
‘Enquiries established that the vehicle was followed by officers prior to the stop due to suspicion of excessive speed at a traffic signal and onward.’
They added that ‘no evidence of misconduct’ was found after reviewing bodycam footage of the incident.
Mr Ehikioya was not arrested and no further action was taken.
The firm representing him, Lawrence Davies of Equal Justice Solicitors, told Sky News there is ‘ingrained racism’ in the Met.
He said: ‘In this case, you appear to have two active racists, and the question then is will the MPS become complicit or discipline them? There are only very few active racists, so we have to tackle the complicit who institutionalise the issue.’
Mr Ehikioya’s complaint comes soon after Labour MP Dawn Butler was stopped by police officers in east London.
Ms Butler accused the Met of racial profiling, and the UK chief of black police officers has since said the incident was rooted in a ‘biased system’.
Claims of institutional racism in the police were also sparked in July, when the same force stopped and handcuffed sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner Ricardo dos Santos while their three-month-old son was in the car.
Both incidents were referred to the police watchdog.
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