IMAGES PIXELLATED TO HIDE IDENTITY OF ARRESTED YOUTH.
What is happening in Birmingham when a kid gets arrested outside a Bull Ring trainer shop at 10.20 in the morning? What was the arrangement between Hammerson (who own the Bull Ring), Foot Locker (the shop seemingly intent on driving sales via promotions post-covid) and West Midlands Police which was such a total cock-up and which resulted in a black youth being intimidated and then frogmarched through the shopping centre in handcuffs (the day after police forces worldwide claimed to have learnt the lessons of George Floyd's murder)?
As I walked through the Birmingham Bull Ring this morning there was a small crowd of kids gathered outside the Foot Locker shop. The security grille was up as if the shop was open but there were hordes of Hammerson security there and the front of the shop was guarded by officers of West Midlands Police. Someone had a loundhalier and was asking the kids to move back. How this "situation" arose in the first place (given Covid rules etc) needs some explanation from the "stakeholders" involved.
There were shouts for people to move back and a feeble attempt by the Hammerson security to get the kids in a line. There was some noise but no obvious aggression. This was around 10.20 am and so not exactly pub-kickout time but the cops suddenly, and inexpicably, decided to force the small crowd to the other side of the shopping mall. When they did so Officer 22xxx pulled a young man from the kettled crowd and forced him out and up the Mall (you will see the Police and security kettling the other shoppers in the background):
The young lad did not resist this treatment (bizarrely, you will see that the Officer 22xxx is clutching a mobile phone). They passed me on my right-hand side but kids in the kettled crowd were shouting that he hadn't done anything wrong (as recorded in my contemporaneous tweet at 10.24 am). I continued to watch the small crowd as I feared that they were going to kick-off. It was to their great credit that they didn't. When I turned round the black lad and the officer had "disappeared".
Foot Locker then brought the shutter down on their outlet and almost inaudible announcements over the shopping centre tannoy said the shop was closing. As I turned I saw there was a "private door" and some kids outside trying to find out what had happened to their mate who had apparently been forced in behind closed doors.
I have no idea what this kid was supposed to have done but I saw no violence and he did not resist the force used to move him from the kettled area. Maybe he has a criminal record as long as my arm but it seemed he was a "tall poppy" who was yanked out of the small crowd as an example to the "others".
As I now know, the lad was taken through a security door. Non-cops might think West Midlands Police would have let the minor situation calm down but the officer seen on the escalator brought him out into the public domain when loads of the kids were still arround and then handcuffed him and took him (unresisting) up the escalator (is this really WMP procedure?):
(Many Brummies will be amazed that the cops managed to find an escalator in the Bull Ring which was actually working.)
The cops apparently wanted to publicly show who was boss to the kids out shopping in a privately-owned shopping centre allegedly wishing to attract customers post-Covid.
And so commercial companies attract kids to the Bull Ring and then get heavy with them and call the cops. We know that black kids are the bottom of the heap in Brum but if this lad is further disadvantaged in life by having a "criminal record" when he just went out one morning with his mates to buy some trainers, then something is even more more wrong in our City than I thought already!
It is essential that this lad gets proper legal representaion and I invite Foot Locker and Hammerson to pay for this. No ifs, no buts.
iancrowmultimedia@gmail.com
