Today at 9.35am at the entrance to Westfield shopping centre on The Olympic Site, a ten minute drive from my home, I was waved by security into what looked like a toll gate. My car faced a barrier built for the purpose of security.
A security guard stood my window and asked me to turn my engine off and informed me that my steering wheel would be swabbed, my car checked and the boot searched. After reaching through my window and swabbing the wheel I was asked to step out of the vehicle and open the boot which along with its contents was checked. Then I returned to the car.
While sat waiting for the results of the swab I was asked a series of quickfire questions to which I responded with clarity and precision.Then the swab results came back I was requested to start my car, the barrier lifted and I was waved on. What had happened was a vehicular and personal stop and search.
It is my responsibility to record this. It is the responsibility of everyone stopped in his own community to record it. People fought, in the not-too-distant-past, for our right to walk unhindered by the violence and intimidation of stop and search. It is in respect to them and myself that I record this. My tweet on 12th April: “Car stopped at Westfield shopping mall. Steering wheel swabbed for narcotics, car boot searched and questioned then released.”
We don’t have rights …We only have privileges and thats why they are being taken away …
I am told it was probably swabbed for explosives rather than narcotics but I was offered no indication as to the reason so I naively assumed it was for narcotics.
Hi Lemn, you may not remember me, (I’m a sculptor) but we both lived in Fulton Court in Hulme in the early nineties and drank in the Salutation.
Your experience with Olympic security makes me so angry. I don’t even know where to begin in raising how contradictory the hypocritical statements and actions of the Olympic committee are. I can feel a rant coming on now so I’ll stop.
Best regards, Nick