A Black man says U.K. police used excessive force against him during an incident late last month, in which he was dragged through shards of glass by officers.
Callum Lother, 23, told Metro he’s traumatized by the incident. He explained that he was in his car on Sept. 30, when West Midlands police officers approached.
“Police just started smashing my car — they were going for the windows and knocking their guns against my car,” he said.
The incident was captured on a CCTV camera. After footage of the encounter surfaced online, West Midlands police said the confrontation happened during an execution of a firearms warrant in the west-central England county.
“We are looking into the actions of our officers, but at this stage have not received a complaint about their conduct,” police said in a statement.
Lother was driving home from a local McDonald’s and wearing pajamas when the encounter began. Officers jumped out of an unmarked vehicle, footage shows, and smashed the windows of Lother’s car.
Out of fear, Lother put his hands up. “I put my hands in the air because I did not want to get shot, I was scared.”
But officers dragged him out of the passenger-side windows, which caused numerous cuts and gashes to Lother’s hands, arms and feet. He was then pinned against the grass on the ground with an officer’s knee in his back.
Lother said he was left bleeding in the back of the police vehicle for three hours. He asked for medical attention, but his request was denied as officers explained intelligence indicated that he had a firearm and said they had two warrants to search his home.
Officers searched Lother’s home but nothing was found. Police then told Lother he was free to go. Lother expressed concerns about the well-being of his 55-year-old mother, who suffers from anxiety, and his sister, who is pregnant. Both women live with Lother.
He said now, the whole family is struggling to sleep at night.
“I am awake 24/7. It is just scary because people could just come back,” Lother said.
“At 4am this morning I had to go and comfort my mum and sit with her, so it is terrifying especially for the women in the house,” he told Metro.
Lother was take to a hospital by officers, where his hand was stitched up and he was given a tetanus shot. His car was left hundreds of dollars of damage and is at least temporarily inoperable, and his phone was also damaged after officers threw it to the ground
“The worst thing is that I have not actually done a thing, so at this point it is basically harassment. It was brutal the way they treated me,” Lother said.
