Black teen stopped and searched by London cops 30 times in two years

Since he turned 13 two years ago, a black schoolboy living in south London has been stopped and searched by cops 30 times. He has never been charged with a crime and his mother is tired of the harassment he receives from the Metropolitan police.

"When the police stop me in the street to search me they put me in cuffs and ask me if I'm carrying weapons," the boy said. "I don't carry a knife and I'm not involved with drugs. I've even been stopped by the police when I've gone outside our flat to take the rubbish out for my mum."

He said that often when he has been stopped by the police they have not given him a written slip explaining the reasons for the stop. On some occasions when he was stopped they have given him a slip. Some of the slips are hard to read, others say he matches the description of people linked to crimes but does not provide detail of the descriptions police believe he matches.

Interesting that stop-and-frisk, something widely recognized in the U.S. as a key marker of racist policing, is so pervasive in the U.K. You give officers the latitude to do it and a superficially nondiscrimnatory rationale and boom, it's all they ever do.