Mother is suing the police for racial discrimination after her home got raided and her 12-year-old son got arrested for playing with a toy gun.
The incident occurred in Camden, London, where the police stormed the home of 42-year-old Alice Mina Agyepong after receiving a report of a black male wielding a gun.
As the officers raided the family home, they arrested and detained 12-year-old Kai who was playing with a toy gun at the time the report was made.
According to the mother, who opened up about the incident during her appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today, she feared for the safety of her daughters and her son as armed police stormed her home and flaunted their guns.
As Agyepong suggested, the officers’ actions were “disproportionate” and unprofessional.
“I would say that again I struggle to see how there was professionalism when actually it was a toy gun,” the upset mother said.
According to the family’s lawyer, Iain Gould, Alice and her children may have been targeted because of their skin color.
Besides suing the Metropolitan Police for racial discrimination, the family is also seeking justice for alleged trespassing, assault, battery, and false imprisonment.
“A toy gun in the UK – this is London, not America. There should have been more of a considered assessment based on the reports that the police received,” Agyepong said.
“That could have been a possibility. They have intelligence, they can find out probably who lives in properties.
“I don’t think police should be pursuing crime or trying to save members of the public at the cost of killing innocent people in their home who have done nothing wrong, cause that’s exactly what could have happened.”
As the upset mother’s lawyer added, the authorities will have to answer questions “as to how this everyday event escalated into an armed raid, during which deadly force could so easily and tragically have been unleashed upon Mina and her children.”
“Even as it stands, with the physical force being ‘confined’ to the handcuffing of a 12 year old boy, the emotional and psychological impact cannot be underestimated. For a family to have the safety and sanctity of their home violated in such a way, is literally the stuff of nightmares,” Gould said.
Replaced!