The acclaimed spoken word artist George the Poet has said he was strip-searched by police without cause after a gig in London.
The Cambridge graduate, real name George Mpanga, who grew up in Harlesden, north-west London, said the incident took place outside his parents’ house on Thursday night. Earlier, he had performed at the Screen on the Green in Islington.
He wrote on Instagram: “Last night after a beautiful sold-out show I was chilling outside my parents’ house when police rolled up in that big van asking questions about my car. I answered and verified. Then they told me to move my hand from my waistband. Out of nowhere they cuffed me and searched my car for weapons. After the car itself was the first issue. They put me in the van and did a strip search. They then took 20 mins to write my search slip, being rude to my parents and neighbours the whole time.”
In an accompanying video, in which Mpanga speaks to camera, police can be heard asking him and his friends for photographic identification. In response, he tells them: “Wikipedia me, Google me.”
In 2015, Mpanga was nominated for the critics’ choice award at the Brit awards as well as coming fifth in the BBC’s sound of 2015 list. He has said he went to Cambridge University with the expectation of becoming an MP or a civil servant but got into poetry because it offered an unfettered opportunity to talk about social progress.
In Friday’s post, he said he was sick of talking about the police and for that reason had not mentioned them when giving talks in Cardiff and Cambridge earlier in the week on the theme of diversity.
He added: “I don’t like sharing images of me being handled like a second-class citizen by public servants whose salaries we pay taxes for. This is not how I see myself, and it’s not what I invite into my life.
“But these images should be an education for anyone who doesn’t understand the toxic energies that are quietly spread throughout our community by state actors. Imagine if my nephews woke up and saw their big famous uncle getting handled like this. What seeds would that sow in them?”
He concluded the post by saying he found writing it “boring” and apologising to “anyone who was woken up by the noise”.
The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, contacted Mpanga on Twitter to express her sorrow at the incident, which she said happened to black men too often.
“Evidence-based stop and search can be a tool against crime,” she said. “But random stops like this take too many resources for what they achieve, and in the end only poison police-community relations.”
So sorry this happened @GeorgeThePoet. Sadly still happens to young black men too often. Evidence-based stop and search can be a tool against crime. But random stops like this take too many resources for what they achieve, and in the end only poison police-community relations. https://t.co/S1hmh8Ha3B
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) June 29, 2018
Official figures published in October showed that black people were eight times more likely to be targeted by officers for stop and search than white people, despite a 21% drop in use of the tactic and government pressure for the racial disparity to end.
A Met police spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on the incident involving Mpanga without details of the exact location and time.
A later statement said: “The Met police takes allegations made about the conduct of its officers very seriously and any formal allegations submitted will always be thoroughly investigated. Members of the public who wish to submit a complaint can do so via the dedicated link to feedback on the home page of the Met website.”
