1 My name is (name) I'm 28 years old and I've been stopped and searched about 8 or 9 times. It kind
2 of gets countless after a while to be honest with you. It's just something that erm just happens that
3 are, “got stopped and searched today, oh is it swear down? what happened? Oh okay” and then you
4 carry on talking about something else. The first time I got stopped and searched was when I was
5 about 14 playing out in the estate in Brixton, and erm police just, police were on foot they just came
6 up to us and said erm that they were gonna stop and search us. All of us just had to stand up against
7 the wall and erm they threatened us about running away, *laughs*and erm yeah, there was no level
8 of respect when he did it. Cos we just stood there, watched each other get searched and erm
9 emptied the pockets up, get frisked front and behind yanno, top to bottom. Nothing was explained
10 to us they just done it, cos like I said we were 14 years old, we looked vulnerable, we were just
11 playing out. So erm how I felt at the time were just scared, I hope I don’t get in trouble by my mum
12 cos I wanna come out and play out tomorrow after school. *laughs*
13 My name is (name) I'm 32 and I've been stopped and searched at least 20 to 30 times in my life.
14 They start by explaining we've had a lot of these incidents in the area and I've heard that over and
15 over and over again throughout my whole life. At first when they stop you they, they erm tried to
16 have that sort of good cop bad cop approach where one of them will try to be sort of the more
17 friendlier version like “okay sir I'm going to let you know we're going to be doing this, these sort of
18 crimes have been happening the area” and they're asking you questions you start to question
19 yourself okay erm, what was I doing? Where am I going to? Okay, why do I need to tell you what I'm
20 doing?
21 My name's (name) I’m 25 and I've been stopped and search so many times, I can't remember how
22 many. The first time I got stopped and searched I was around 11 years old 11 12 years old. A lot of
23 the times erm when I was stopped in searched as a child erm, the police would say it's cause there's
24 been robberies in the area erm, but they wouldn't erm tell us a description that we fitted, except for
25 probably being black and wearing urban clothes. But there’s times when they would just harass us
26 erm, you know strip, strip search in the back of the van. You know, touching touching certain places
27 that they not really legally, now I understand not legally allowed to do so, they they used to really
28 erm take advantage of our lack of knowledge on the law and a lot of us just thought because they
29 are police there allowed to do anything they want.
30 My name is… I’m 14 years old I've been stopped and searched once when I was 13. Me and my
31 friend was walking down the street and um, an undercover officer, he wasn't wearing any any
32 clothing that showed he was an officer, grabbed me. So at the time I thought it was kidnappers that
33 were trying to kidnap people, so obviously I was really scared for my friend. Erm I now know that um
34 you're meant to show your permit to to know that to let us know that you’re police and you're going
35 to do a stop and search.
36 My name is (name) I’m 24 and I've been stopped and searched over 400 times. Even up to today
37 they still use the same language, “There’s reports of robberies, you match the description” that’s
38 their reason basically. When they target you from young and you’ve done so much when you was
39 young, it’s like they don’t wanna let that go. So they will always try erm, see your movements, pre
40 your movements, see where you go, watch you and do certain things. You’re more likely to get
41 stopped and searched if you’re wearing a tracksuit to be honest, because they think every person
42 wearing a track suit is a drug dealer or something. So they will target that, that’s what I think that’s
43 my opinion.