Black men of Wolverhampton say: 'Time to address humiliating police stop and search disparity'
Wolverhampton residents say it it time to stop humiliating police stop and searches after figures show that black people in the region are more than three times as likely to be stopped than white people.
Responding to the latest data several males, of different age groups in Wolverhampton, told Express & Star reporter Sunil Midda they had been stopped and searched.
Delroy Hall, from Wolverhampton, said: "The statistics and news is not surprising, it is standard. I've been stopped before randomly. It has been going on since I was a child.
"Nothing will be done about it, it's just rhetoric. You can't stop it from happening until we change the mindset of people.
"I don't doubt that the police are trying to do their job, trying to clean up streets and be proactive, but there will always be people committing crime, so what is the point of randomly stopping somebody like me?
"I'm a professional, but it doesn't mean anything to them. It ticks me off, I've gone past the part of humiliation when I was 16. Now that I'm a grown man, it really ticks me off and it is pathetic.
"A couple of weeks ago, there was a report that police officers are turning off body cameras, and so, even with the technology to prevent hostility and abuse of power, they are turning the cameras off.
"So what does that say?
"You won't find a solution. There needs to be a way for the establishment to find a solution for the conflict.
"Of course it is racial profiling and racially motivated.
"I have friends that are executives, they drive nice cars, but they will get randomly stopped. It happens to sports people, athletes, and it is purely down the skin colour.
"I don't for one moment accept it. It happens, but I don't accept that we just have to live with it.
"It is the same with Asians and migrants that are coming into the country."
Henry Seka, from Wolverhampton, said: "Yes, I have been stopped, and I know of people that have been stopped and searched. It is not always random though.
"I feel that what we wear draws attention and people get stopped because of that as well. I sometimes adapt what I wear to prevent it happening to me.
"I don't know what the solution is but maybe less hostility, but also there is a reason that the police do what they do. To a certain extent they have a job to do.
"Maybe there needs to be more information out there on what to do and not to do, for people, so that they know how to approach a situation when stopped by police."
Eddie Clark, 84, from Wolverhampton, also said over the years he adapted his clothing in a bid to avoid run-ins with police. He said: "A friend of mine has twin boys. The two boys got stopped a few hundred yards away from their house and put into the back of a police car for no reason.
"They questioned why and said any documents can be given from their house just up the street, but they were refused and put into a police car.
"It could be done so much better with more respect. There isn't a fear of being stopped. There is a fear of how it is done. I don't know what the solution is - maybe police should be more gentle.
"This is not being proactive or preventing crime. This is creating crime, being hostile and the random stops," he added.
