Bianca Williams incident - is this 'racial profiling'

T

Tangojoe

Well-known member
Police stopped British sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner Ricardo dos Santos while driving in Maida Vale.
She accused the police of racial profiling and acting violently towards them. Williams and Portuguese 400m record holder Dos Santos, 25, said they were targeted because they are black and drive a Mercedes.
"It's a really sad world that we live in and if it's not one black man, it's another black man."
"We didn't want to get out of the car because of how their behaviour was, they had batons ready and it is very scary, you worry about your life"
"It's just nasty and the police were talking to Ricardo as if he was scum, as if his life didn't matter."
Williams says she has been left "really shaken" by the incident.
"The police always say to him you look like someone we're looking for, how can you afford a £60,000 car, you look very suspicious. "
Dos Santos, who plans to meet lawyers on Monday about the incident, said that he had been stopped by police as many as 15 times since they changed their car to a Mercedes in November 2017.
Linford Christie, accused the police of abusing their power and institutionalised racism.

Police say they tried to stop a vehicle with blacked-out windows that was driving suspiciously including driving on the wrong side of the road. They indicated for it to stop but it failed to do so and made off at speed. A police statement said: "Officers from the Directorate of Professional Standards have reviewed both footage from social media, and the body-worn video of the officers, and are satisfied that there is no concern around the officers' conduct."


So, what are we seeing here? Is this institutionalised racism or are the police just doing their job?


www.bbc.co.uk

Williams' 'heart hurts' after police stop car

British sprinter Bianca Williams tells the BBC her "heart hurts" after being stopped by police with her partner.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
Hard to say until we see the video footage? Blacked out windows will always cause interest to the traffic police as would driving on the wrong side of the road.
If they were shown to be doing what is stated on the video, then it's a fair cop. If not, questions need to be asked....
 
Have you been stopped 17 times in 3 years? I haven't been stopped 3 times in 43 years of driving so you can't blame her even if its a coincidence. The perception is that it's because she's a black person in a Merc.
 
I can see both sides of this incident. However, during the incident I would have expected the Police to have been gathering information about ownership of the car from the DVLA. If they had that to hand once the Mercedes had been stopped then they could quickly have established that the vehicle was not stolen and, if concerned about erratic driving, they could have issued an informal warning, all without any aggression.
 
So instead of refusing to get out of the car, making the police more suspicious why not comply with the law, ask them the reasons for being stopped and then if the answers don't fit the questions then put in a complaint.
But no, her heart hurts because she was pulled over after driving on the wrong side of the road and speeding off. They had batons ready love because THEY didn't know what to expect next. Both bodycam and social media footage (she was that shaken she or her partner had time to get their phones out to film the whole situation) showed nothing wrong with how the police delt with the situation.
And unfortunately, whichever way she wants to look at it, it is mostly blacks who are getting stopped for drugs, arms and stolen property in that area so the police were doing their job. If it was mainly white people most of those would be getting stopped!

Here's a tip, if you get stopped by the police and you've done nothing wrong, you'll go happily on your way. So stop!!

Dons tin hat 😞
 
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Wizzerboy said:
So instead of refusing to get out of the car, making the police more suspicious why not comply with the law, ask them the reasons for being stopped and then if the answers don't fit the questions then put in a complaint.
But no, her heart hurts because she was pulled over after driving on the wrong side of the road and speeding off. They had batons ready love because THEY didn't know what to expect next. Both bodycam and social media footage (she was that shaken she or her partner had time to get their phones out to film the whole situation) showed nothing wrong with how the police felt with the situation.
And unfortunately, whichever way she wants to look at it, it is mostly blacks who are getting stopped for drugs, arms and stolen property in that area so the police were doing their job. If it was mainly white people most of those would be getting stopped!

Here's a tip, if you get stopped by the police and you've done nothing wrong, you'll go happily on your way. So stop!!

Dons tin hat 😞
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17 times in 3 years would change your attitude.
 
I hope the police footage gets shown.

Its supposedly available as it's been assessed and backs up the action taken.

Not sure how its possible to racially profile through blacked out windows - did they observe through the windscreen?

This is gathering momentum so needs clarifying immediately.

Edit - I'm even more confused as to what happened after listening to her.

 
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Im sure i would be pissed off if i was stopped a lot just for driving a nice car.
However the police have an unenviable task.
Its like the stop and search rules, they were damned if they do and damned if they dont.

On a side note perhaps its fair to say those who drive flash cars and hot hatches should expect to be stopped more than average as a lot of them are massive bellends😂
 
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It seems less like racial profiling and more like car profiling to me. Again when I was in my late teens / early 20s I regularly got stopped. I lost track of the number of 'producers' I was given.
A Merc with blacked out windows would certainly be a 'profile car' more than a Renault Captur wouldn't it?
 
Tangojoe said:
Police stopped British sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner Ricardo dos Santos while driving in Maida Vale.
She accused the police of racial profiling and acting violently towards them. Williams and Portuguese 400m record holder Dos Santos, 25, said they were targeted because they are black and drive a Mercedes.
"It's a really sad world that we live in and if it's not one black man, it's another black man."
"We didn't want to get out of the car because of how their behaviour was, they had batons ready and it is very scary, you worry about your life"
"It's just nasty and the police were talking to Ricardo as if he was scum, as if his life didn't matter."
Williams says she has been left "really shaken" by the incident.
"The police always say to him you look like someone we're looking for, how can you afford a £60,000 car, you look very suspicious. "
Dos Santos, who plans to meet lawyers on Monday about the incident, said that he had been stopped by police as many as 15 times since they changed their car to a Mercedes in November 2017.
Linford Christie, accused the police of abusing their power and institutionalised racism.

Police say they tried to stop a vehicle with blacked-out windows that was driving suspiciously including driving on the wrong side of the road. They indicated for it to stop but it failed to do so and made off at speed. A police statement said: "Officers from the Directorate of Professional Standards have reviewed both footage from social media, and the body-worn video of the officers, and are satisfied that there is no concern around the officers' conduct."


So, what are we seeing here? Is this institutionalised racism or are the police just doing their job?


www.bbc.co.uk

Williams' 'heart hurts' after police stop car

British sprinter Bianca Williams tells the BBC her "heart hurts" after being stopped by police with her partner.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...

Clearly she was lying when she said "The police always say to him you look like someone we're looking for, how can you afford a £60,000 car, you look very suspicious " and I suspect the claim to have been stopped 15 times in less than 3 years is too. Otherwise the police would be investigating the claim.

Also, the police didn't chase them because of their colour as the car had blacked out windows. It looks like they committed an offence and did a runner and she kicked off when stopped. Saying stuff like "the police were talking to Ricardo as if he was scum, as if his life didn't matter" is another lie as we can see from the footage.

And by saying "it's a really sad world that we live in and if it's not one black man, it's another black man" shows what her agenda really is.

To be fair to him, he seemed to behave well as, indeed, both of them should have done in that situation.
 
The police footage won’t lie so it needs to be seen. Until then I cant judge as it’s 2 different stories we are hearing.
The truth will out I’m sure and one side or the other is going to look very silly or outright liars.
 
I wish the Police would stop some of the kids in their Clios , Corsas and misfiring Subarus who are always speeding
 
I was stopped a couple of years ago at 4.30 in the morning taking my son to work. One of the coppers pissed me off immediately with his attitude and stupid questions. My son had to calm me down . When they’d finishedone of them said I thought you might have got out of the car. I replied that I had done nothing wrong and it was freezing so I had no intention of getting out.
 
west_paddock_casualret said:
It Doesn’t really matter what the police footage shows, she was the one that posted it to try and Incriminate the police , but instead it shows him refusing get out of the car and her squealing the usual nonsense while the police acted in a calm and professional manner.
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I haven’t seen it which is why I can’t comment. But if turns out that that’s what it shows then they haven’t a leg to stand on, I agree.
 
Wizzerboy said:
My youngest has been pulled up many times in his Clio.
As soon as the police ascertain that no offence is taking place then he goes on his merry way.
I think it's called cooperation 🤔
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What is the justification for stopping him?
 
I was once walking up my local deserted high street when I lived in London with a mate of mine at 3am on a Wednesday morning. A police car pulled us over & asked what we were doing.
I explained we were Argyle fans & were returning from Lincoln after watching a match the previous evening.
The copper said that it was such a ridiculous story that it had to be true & sent us on our way !
 
Pasty Muncher said:
I was once walking up my local deserted high street when I lived in London with a mate of mine at 3am on a Wednesday morning. A police car pulled us over & asked what we were doing.
I explained we were Argyle fans & were returning from Lincoln after watching a match the previous evening.
The copper said that it was such a ridiculous story that it had to be true & sent us on our way !
Click to expand...

In my youth, me and mates were driving to Halifax to watch the Mighty.

We crashed on the way there and shifted the car to a safer place before trying to hitch a lift to the game.

A couple of fine gentleman from the West Yorkshire Police were kind enough to stop and give us a lift.

They informed us that our car was registered stolen - it wasn't it was registered to the garage it had recently been purchased from - and they took us straight to Huddersfield and put us in cells until just before the end of the game when they were kind enough to let us go.

They refused to give us a lift back to the car that was around 10 miles away.

Why were we treated like this ?
 
SEASIDE2020 said:
In my youth, me and mates were driving to Halifax to watch the Mighty.

We crashed on the way there and shifted the car to a safer place before trying to hitch a lift to the game.

A couple of fine gentleman from the West Yorkshire Police were kind enough to stop and give us a lift.

They informed us that our car was registered stolen - it wasn't it was registered to the garage it had recently been purchased from - and they took us straight to Huddersfield and put us in cells until just before the end of the game when they were kind enough to let us go.

They refused to give us a lift back to the car that was around 10 miles away.

Why were we treated like this ?
Click to expand...

They were AVFTT regulars?
 
My cricketing friend, a black guy in his 60s, is regularly stopped on his way to a match and often when driving with his wife, his son a former professional cricketer gets stopped just as often. There offence seems to be that they are black and both drive a nice car.

So, if you are back and drive a nice car you must be dodgy, takes a lot of living with that.
 
braymarina said:
My cricketing friend, a black guy in his 60s, is regularly stopped on his way to a match and often when driving with his wife, his son a former professional cricketer gets stopped just as often. There offence seems to be that they are black and both drive a nice car.

So, if you are back and drive a nice car you must be dodgy, takes a lot of living with that.
Click to expand...
So where does this bias come from?
Is it pure racism and jealousy or is it based upon a learned experience?

I was stopped regularly as a teenager as it was my age group most likely to be causing an offence of some sort in a car on an evening. In that case it was a learned experience I guess?
 
I see she's doubling down now...going to sue the police for racial profiling. Typical reaction when you've been caught out as just plain wrong. That NASCAR driver did the same with the fake noose (news) incident
 
Ragnarok said:
That NASCAR driver did the same with the fake noose (news) incident
Click to expand...

How can you say that? You are taking what Trump said as fact which has been vehemently rebuked by NASCAR, the driver and pretty much every other journo and report on the internet.
 
Why wait until your driving on the wrong side of the road, failing to stop, before making off at speed, to make a complaint ?
Sorry but if she's saying she's been stopped x number of times previously, the complaint should have come in well before she was plainly in the wrong.
 
The police have a job to do..and if they pull someone over, regardless of colour, if that person is driving within the law and is insured and road legal they’ve nothing to worry about?......the police officer won’t know the person has been stopped previously will they... .....
Or do the police only stop white people..?
A stupid look at poor me nonsense story IMO..
 
Ragnarok said:
That NASCAR driver did the same with the fake noose (news) incident
Click to expand...
It wasn't even Bubba Wallace who reported the noose....or even knew about it until after the FBI was called.
Turns out the noose was put up by the owners of the track to pull the garage door down.
It was NASCAR officials who called in the FBI because drivers were turning up to race and they saw this noose.......and put 2+2 =5

It was NASCAR drivers and their crews that all stood with Bubba.......
It was Trump that called it a hoax and then inserted the banning of the confederate flag for the reason in the poor TV ratings.

The fact that NASCAR TV ratings have dropped by over 30% since 2019.
But Fox actually reported a 110% ratings increases for the race at Martinsville, which happened hours after NASCAR announced its ban of the flag
And that last race saw an increase of 12% on last years viewing figures.......

#TrumpFakeNews
 
Looks like she threw a few pork pies in there. Maybe if she'd cooperated with the police she could have been on her way sooner.

Seems like a consensus that Bianca was out of order. Still, I don't suppose it will do her career any harm. At least a few people know who she is now.
 
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. As is often the case. The police see it from their pov, the couple see it from their pov. No-one is necessarily wrong, just looking at it from a different angle.
 
Ooooh, was that a little bit of an apology from the London Met that I just read about. That’ll upset one or two on here.
 
Recidivist3 said:
Ooooh, was that a little bit of an apology from the London Met that I just read about. That’ll upset one or two on here.
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An apology for the distress caused, not for making the stop. We’ll see if the rest is bollocks when the internal investigation is done.
 
"Police say the vehicle had been on the wrong side of the road and the driver sped off when asked to stop."

This really is a non-story, with someone trying to make it BLM issue.
 
Ragnarok said:
I see she's doubling down now...going to sue the police for racial profiling. Typical reaction when you've been caught out as just plain wrong. That NASCAR driver did the same with the fake noose (news) incident
Click to expand...
Or the response when you are aggrieved at your treatment to the extent that you can not let it go. Probably getting hammered by racist abuse on social media doesn't help.
 
Cheers, Bollie. Still a case of wait and see I guess, tho’ I can’t believe that people didn’t just accept the threads ‘consensus’ on this one.
 
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