London police to review handcuffing procedures

LONDON — The head of the London Metropolitan Police said Wednesday that the force’s handcuffing practices would be reviewed, after officers on Saturday pulled a top British sprinter and her partner from their car and handcuffed them in front of their 3monthold son.

The athlete, Bianca Williams, 26, a European and Commonwealth games gold medalist, and her partner, Ricardo dos Santos, 25, a Portuguese track star, were driving home from training Saturday afternoon in Maida Vale, a welloff neighborhood in West London, when they were stopped by police. They were handcuffed for 45 minutes on the side of the road while police searched the vehicle.

The London Metropolitan Police said in a statement that the vehicle was stopped because it was “being driven in a manner that raised suspicion,” but Williams accused the officers of racial profiling. She said that she and dos Santos were pulled over only because they were Black and driving an expensive Mercedes in a wealthy section of the city.

Police have apologized to Williams and dos Santos for causing distress but have denied wrongdoing, despite criticism that the encounter was the latest example of “stop and search” tactics disproportionately targeting Black people in Britain.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick on Wednesday acknowledged that the encounter “raised lots of concerns for people.”

Dick told lawmakers that although there had been no apparent misconduct by the police, two of her officers had visited Williams on Tuesday to apologize.

“I think all of us watching could empathize with somebody who is stopped in a vehicle, who has a young child in the back, who does not probably know what exactly is going on, and is subsequently found, together with her partner, not to be carrying anything illicit,” Dick said at a hearing of the Home Affairs Committee.

While the use of “stop and search” tactics has dropped sharply from a peak in 2009, there has been a spike in their use during the coronavirus lockdown. It has coincided with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement globally, which has focused public attention on police tactics following the death of George Floyd while in police custody in the United States.