It has been reported that West Midlands Police violently assaulted a 23-year-old Black man named Callum Lother after driving home from his local McDonald’s last Wednesday.
Local CCTV footage depicts several police offers jumping out of an unmarked vehicle, smashing Lother’s windows for seemingly no reason, and brandishing their weapons. Later, the footage shows the police pry Lother from his car and slam him onto the ground. Lother was subsequently dragged through the broken glass, leaving cuts all over his body and an extensive injury on the victim’s hand in particular.
“As soon as the van boxed me in, I put my hands in the air because I did not want to get shot, I was scared,” Lother told The Metro. “Police just started smashing my car—they were going for the windows and knocking their guns against my car. Then they decided to come to the passenger window and pull me through the passenger seat. That is when I cut my hand, and glass went in my foot. They did not care about the damage they caused, and they then threw my phone across the floor and also broke it. They also had me on the floor face down with their feet pressed into my back while I lay there barefoot in the glass.”
According to Lother, he was left traumatised following the event. After his brutal ordeal, Lother also recounts being handcuffed and locked in a police van dripping blood for over three hours.
Whilst Lother was cuffed, he was allegedely barred from receiving medical attention until the police searched his home. Police did eventually drive Lother to a police station, where he received an x-ray, a tetanus injection to prevent infection, as well as stitches for his wounded hand.
According to data from The Metro’s initial report, a search warrant was issued for Lother’s home in Stechford, Birmingham. However, the search proved fruitless. Lother lamented there was no documentation shown when officers handcuffed him during his ordeal.
Lother has accused the force of “police brutality” against him, and is now considering taking legal action. A West Midlands Police spokesman confirmed that they are “looking into the actions of our officers, but at this stage have not received a complaint about their conduct.”
Many have cited this Lother’s situation as yet another tireless case of police racism. The story follows a litany of recent accounts of police brutality towards Black people, like South London officers choking out a 13-year-old Black boy last week, or Bromley police leaving a 70-year-old Black man with severe head injuries last month.
