This is the moment Olympic sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos pleads ‘What did I do?’ as police officers swarm him and scream ‘Get out of the car’ in front of his baby son.
One can be seen raising his police-issued baton above his shoulder and yelling at the international sprinter to ‘get out’ while a female officer frantically shouts ‘there’s a baby in the car’.
Mr Dos Santos exits the car, and clearly looking distressed and confused, backs away and pleads ‘What did I do?’.
Two Scotland Yard officers grab hold of his top before pulling his arms behind his back and handcuffing him as the sprinter shouts ‘My kid’s in the car, bro’ before he screams out in pain.
Mr Dos Santos, 28, repeatedly asks throughout the seven-minute footage why he’s been detained and followed to which officers allege he was ‘trying to evade them’ and then claim ‘they can smell weed in the car’.
The sprinter laughs and responds: ‘Do you know who I am? You can smell cannabis? Are you dumb?’
The distressing encounter took place on July 4, 2020, after the couple drove back to their West London home from training.
At one point the sprinter, who competed for Portugal in the 400m sprint at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, tells officers he’s bleeding to which they say it had been caused by his actions.
Mr Dos Santos says that they were following him for no reason and that he knew they were following him and then asked for what reason were they following him, and that he was bleeding.
He then goes on to say that they were so funny. That he was an athlete and to look at his car, and the number plates.
An officer then carries out a search on suspicion of him having drugs, but no drugs were discovered.
Towards the end of the footage, Mr Dos Santos accuses officers of being racist and said he was taking every single one of their names.
He said: ‘You are all racist p*,’ he says. ‘You are racists, all you lot are racists, racist guys racist feds, racist police officers. Hurry up. I live here. I live right here. What are you lot doing? For what reason? There’s nothing here, bro.
The footage was shown at a disciplinary hearing in southeast London and has now been released by the IOPC.
Now we know why the Metropolitan Police have such a bad standing, this is despicable behaviour by the police.
This, of course, doesn’t just happen to people of colour, it happens to all people, but generally, that doesn’t make the news.
This isn’t just a black thing, it’s a police thing, and before anybody says anything, I’m not a racist in any shape or form.
Whoever this happens to, this is totally unacceptable conduct from the police. There’s a time, place and situations for this type of response, and this incident patently doesn’t qualify.
It took five police officers to apprehend Dos Santos. You can’t even get 1 to come out if you’ve been burgled these days.
It appears that anybody can be stopped regardless of who they are. However, it doesn’t take 5 officers to stop a person under stop and search.
If the police want to arrest weed smokers, they should just take a walk on our streets, the aroma is oozing out of homes and on the streets, but of course, that would be too much hard work for them.
This isn’t a good look for a police force that is supposed to be changing its ways.
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