Met defends officers who handcuffed 12-year-old seen with BB gun
The Metropolitan police have defended officers who arrested and handcuffed a 12-year-old boy seen with a toy gun, saying they acted in line with training and expectations.
Mina Agyepong, 42, lodged a complaint after her son Kai was led away by armed officers and detained in a police vehicle during the raid on their house in Somers Town, north London, on 17 July.
The officers, responding to a report by a member of the public that they had seen a male with a firearm at the property, eventually dearrested Kai after establishing that it was a BB or plastic pellet gun. His mother told the Camden New Journal the experience left the family traumatised and feeling “utterly violated”.
On Sunday, Commander Kyle Gordon, the Met’s lead for firearms, said there had been several shootings in recent months, adding: “Officers attending reports such as this must treat them as genuine until they can verify whether or not an actual firearm is present … based on the information at hand, the officers acted in line with their training and my expectations, enabling the incident to be concluded as quickly and safely as possible.
“I have personally watched body-worn video of the incident and whilst I can understand concerns in terms of how the incident has been reported in some quarters, I am content from what I have seen that the officers were professional throughout and took time to explain to the residents what was happening and why. The reporting member of the public was right to call us and we would encourage others who see similar weapons to do the same.”
The Met said the BB gun was similar in size and shape to a viable handgun, with the only difference being a “blue slide” at the top.
Mina Agyepong said she was asleep when officers raided the house shortly after 11pm. “There must’ve been about 25 police officers, 10 armed officers with weapons with red laser lights,” she told the Camden New Journal. “All I could see was police cars and lights. I told them almost straight away that there were no weapons in the house, only a toy gun belonging to my son, but we were shouted at to put our hands above our heads and walk one by one out to the street. We were all terrified.”
She and her two daughters, aged 16 and 23, were evacuated from the property while it was searched by firearms officers.
In a blogpost, solicitor Iain Gould, acting on behalf of the Agyepongs, said they would be seeking compensation. He said he wanted to establish “ to what degree the police response to the report they received was escalated because of the colour of Kai’s skin”.
On social media, some police officers tweeting under pseudonyms posted images of toy or imitation guns, which they said illustrated the difficulty of distinguishing them from the real thing. One wrote: “If you glimpsed this, would you know? Would you take a risk? As soon as it was found to be a toy he was dearrested. That’s not profiling, it’s safety.”
The Met previously said that a mandatory referral has been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
