r/Glasgow Tools

I live in Scotland now but lived in a predominantly black area of east London a good few years ago. It was a stones throw from where the riots started.

I worked in the centre of London and was working night shift that week and had to get the tube. It was dark already and raining, so I was power walking up the street, hands in pockets, hood pulled over my face. A policeman on the other side of the road shouted “STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE”, I looked up slightly and saw two cops crossing the road and fanning out, so one was in front of me and one was moving round to my rear. First cop shouted “PULL YOUR HOOD DOWN SLOWLY”, so I did. He was quite close by now and I could see the confusion on his face that I was, well, white.

They asked me quite aggressively what I was doing there, I told them, they took my name and postcode and called in my details on their radio, while the other cop gave me a patting down. I didn’t have a record so first cop gruffly said “right you can go”. To which I said, “where’s my receipt?”. One of them rolled their eyes and scribbled something on a little form they had and gave it to me, I wasn’t late for work anyway so I just threw it in the bin.

They never told me why they were stopping me (I suspect it’s because they just like stopping people in black areas), why they searched me (in hindsight they probably thought maybe I was a drug dealer) and they didn’t offer me a receipt of a stop and search which I’m pretty sure they have to.

So yeh those two were dicks. Sorry for the boring story.