by Bethany Rielly

PRESSURE is mounting on the Metropolitan Police to sack a police officer filmed punching a black teenager outside a school in north London.

The circulation of the video on social media sparked outrage last week, prompting protests last Friday. 

The Met claimed that three officers were injured after a 16-year-old was detained during a stop and search outside a school in Haringey on December 8. 

In a statement on December 11, police said that they circled the teenager after a crowd gathered. Four 16-year-olds were arrested during the incident and released on bail. 

Local activists in Tottenham today disputed the Met’s version of events, condemning claims that officers were injured as “pure fiction.” 

The Black Lives Matter Movement — a local anti-racist group in Tottenham, separate to the national Black Lives Matter UK group — raised concerns about the statement issued by police last Friday.  

“The children were described in threatening tones as ‘four males,’ when in fact they were kids picking up certificates from their former school,” the group said.

Haringey Stand up to Racism said that the statement had “further inflamed community tensions.”

The BLM Movement said that one of the teenagers was taken to hospital by police and has been left “traumatised.”

It has called a second protest this Saturday outside Tottenham police station to demand that the officers involved be sacked.

The Met did not have any further comment and said that the initial statement remains unchanged.  

The incident has also been condemned by Haringey Labour councillors Joseph Ejiofor, Mark Blake and Kaushika Amin.

Mr Ejiofor said: “Irrespective of the alleged provocation, the video shows a police officer losing control of the situation.”

He added: “The police must understand how these images impact upon the confidence that the community has in how they are policed.”

In a statement, Mr Blake and Ms Amin said that the footage is “incredibly concerning particularly as it appears to involve a child, and we simply cannot ignore this issue. 

“There are genuine concerns about the disproportionate use of force by police against black people and right on our doorstep in Haringey.”

In the Met’s statement on Friday, local commander Detective Chief Superintendent Treena Fleming said that the videos showed a “snapshot in time and the wider context is not immediately obvious.”

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating.