I was born in 1993 in Dagonham. I moved to Hackney at the age of 2. At the age of 10,
I started having confrontations with gangs. There was one incident where I was in a park
with my niece, my sister, and my mum, and they came up to me and started asking where
I was from. They were intimidating me by visual coordinates and telling me I'm not meant to
be from here. I was scared and at the same time I was angry at the fact that I couldn't
work through certain areas. We have access to almost 3,000 cameras across the borough.
There's an awful lot of cameras. You can't possibly certainly watch every camera 24-7.
There is a gang problem within London and Hackney. Improving it to make the young kids
feel safe is probably having more face-to-face discussions with young people, with the police
and the young people, to understand each other, interact with them, become more modern when
talking to young people. At the minute, I believe that some young people or the people
in these gangs do not trust police officers for whatever reason, through past experience.
But if we could try and break that area and get them to trust us and come forward to us
with any information, we might be able to start building up that bondage we need.
When the police stop and search me, I feel sad because it shows that they're stereotype
black people. It's not always black children that are always out committing crimes. They
used to put me to the ground, put me against the wall, you know, actually stop me aggressively.
And then they'll do checks on me, they'll do further investigations and at the end of
it they'll tell me that it was a wrong identity or insufficient evidence.
My name is Simon Natus. We're based in Stratford in East London. We specialise in criminal
defence work and human rights related work, research that's been conducted into the riots
in August last year, in particular research conducted by the Guardian and the LSE, has
made it quite clear after interviewing people, young people who participated in those riots
that one of the reasons why they participated was anger at the police because of the excessive
use of stop and search. The unfortunate thing is it can also be used as a means of harassing
people as a means of exercising power of people. The police showing young people who's boss
that if young black and other minority ethnic people feel that they are being targeted more
than others they are right to feel that. That's what the statistics bear out and it's a problem
that needs to be addressed. And they certainly can't racially profile people and stop people
on the basis that they belong to a particular racial group or they dress in a particular
way, that can be completely wrong. I'm seventeen years old and I used to live in
Vietnam. I was in a gang. I felt like I was being respected in a gang because I don't
know, I used to do bad stuff to people and no one used to mess about with me. So yeah
young people, the reason they get into gangs because first they want to be respected, second
is because it's protection. So say if somebody else comes into the area and try and beat
them up they got people to back them. I felt like a bad person. So I decided to change
my ways, my attitude, my behaviour and stuff. And then that's when I realised that I was
being respected and people really liked me and I had talents besides that which is singing
and rapping. You can show people what you got and just don't be on the road, don't follow
other people and you need to know what friends you're hanging out with. Like and the most
important thing, get them concentrated in school and but even though you're not in a
gang if they think like if they never seen you before around the area you know how they
are, they're complicated, they start asking you questions and then you could end up getting
stabbed or beaten up or robbed. If people know that you're going to different areas
like such London fields to Doulston Lane, Doulston Lane to Pembury, Pembury to Fellows
Court, yeah and in Pembury like Fellows Court to my end they'll be thinking yeah you're
a pagan, you like to go to different ends. I'm just a simple young man walking on the
road and then when I get stopped by the police I get proper, proper, proper, proper angry
and I just can't handle these police officers who come up to you and start saying oh you
fit this description of this person, of this person, yeah and sometimes they say it's
because of the colour. I think most of the occasions it's because of the colour and
because of the hoodies. I'm Joseph and I'm 17 and I'm from South London which is the
Louisian borough and growing up in that type of area I experienced many things, I saw many
things and the gangs that I saw around those areas kind of pressured me into that type of
lifestyle of selling drugs, stabbing and fighting with enemies and they came a time where I
and my friends decided outside selling drugs outside and I was bar and then it became a
time we were doing it for quite a while, we were getting money and then we all got arrested
and stuff started going down from there and then the day that I had my court case my lawyer
said it's really unlikely that you'll be given bail today because you replied for it
twice and they refused it so then I just prayed and believed that God would do it for me and
then that day they gave me bail and then from there on the next Sunday on that day went
to church, came to the VPA and then they started showing me the right things to do, the friend
crowds and I also had other people's testimonies of what happened in their life and it really
touched me because I know one of my friends that didn't manage to get an opportunity because
he was involved in it as well and then he was walking home by himself and then he also
got caught by the enemy and they stabbed him in his neck and then he died and if you mix
around with the wrong type of friends like they could be going to fight an enemy and
if you go there they might be able to run away and you don't you might get caught and you
might get hurt but if you're running with friends that are going to the library they're
going to a place to you know say if they're going to church to worship God or they're
going just to places that are quiet and not a place that is of anger or hate then you're
also in a calm situation and you won't get yourself mixed up in all that type of stuff.
Well certain police they treat them kind of bad, some people do abuse their authority
but like just listen to what they say and don't do that type of thing then young people
can get along with police and you know rights or anything like that.
I've been harassing, I've been embarrassing, I've never got myself finished, keep me quiet
and I'm still being stereotyped and I can never carry on peacefully, literally.
I was almost on the system so listen and never let them put you in that position because
it's life ain't a stop and search competition to get away from the streets.
There is no this here and streets are going down and the streets are going down and it's
never too late and it's never too late and you can always escape and the streets are
going down and they've got to leave the bir ч moje now and it's never too late and it's never
to be and you can always escape and you can always escape and you can always escape and you can
And you can always escape
And you can always escape
And you can always escape
