We were at Eat Of Eden in Brixton and my sister messaged me with the image and said, “Is this you, bruv? It looks like you,” and I just laughed and said, “Yeah.” She said, “This is on Reuters and it’s going viral.”
I put it on my Instagram – I put the image up; I put the video footage on there – and I said it’s not black vs white, it’s everybody vs the racists. I had been watching a lot of the demonstrations on TV and a lot of the other things that were happening in the world and there was a point when I was thinking, “Well, what can I do?”
Sometimes you kind of feel a bit helpless sitting at home. And, obviously, when you have children to take care of and grandchildren, it’s not easy to just get up and go to a demonstration. So, just sitting at home, just in those weeks preceding that day, it was playing on my mind a lot.
When George Floyd was killed it was a real poignant moment, when it was like, enough is enough. And, you know, something’s got to be done now, because how many more of us are going to be killed? And we will sit by and act as if it’s just another everyday thing.
I wasn’t a perfect teenager. I did get in a bit of trouble. I had my mum down at the police station a few times. But eventually it was the love of my mum that ultimately changed my behaviour. I didn’t want to let her down, so I fixed up.
It’s easy to sit by and say to any individual, especially young people, to be the bigger person and not to react and not let things escalate, but, you know, when you’re on the other end of racism and oppression, it’s very difficult. And we’re all different individuals.
One of the reasons we were [at the Black Lives Matter rallies] was to protect and oversee and to stop the young people doing things they may regret. Because once they’ve done that thing and they go in front of the justice system, they’re not going to be fairly treated. We know that.
So I would just pull them aside and give them a quick word and say, “Listen, you know, you’re here to demonstrate. Don’t do anything silly. Don’t do anything that you’re going to regret later on. Because there are police cameras everywhere. They’re filming everything that you’re doing, every movement you make, so just make sure you’re here to demonstrate and demonstrate only. Don’t get yourself mixed up or get involved in any tear-ups. Just stay cool and everything will be fine.”
And I was just reiterating that message to all the youngsters that I knew. Earlier in the day there was a bit of an altercation and stuff kicking off down at Trafalgar Square. But when we got to Waterloo, the little bits and bobs were taking place. Ultimately, the majority of it was peaceful and it’s important that we’re allowed to protest, because we have a right. We all do. It’s your God-given right to say what’s on your mind. So it’s important that that’s not taken away, that when you do protest it’s done peacefully and you get your message across. Anything that descends into violence, you lose the message.
We had defused quite a few situations that weren’t all caught on camera. There was one time when a car was attacked that had EDL members, or suspected EDL members, inside. We stopped that happening. A young man was turned on: [protesters] all of a sudden thought he was a member of the EDL. We stopped that happening. There was a young man who was doing graffiti with a template, a fist template, spraying it all over the place, and we got in between him and the police, who were about to arrest him. We spoke to the police and calmed the situation down and we took the spray away and gave it to the police.
I think it’s better to lead by example and show the people who do these negative things, these oppressors and whomever else, that you’re different, that you have a kind heart. And, in the end, I feel that will prevail. It might not seem like it at the time, but I think ultimately and eventually there’ll be a brighter day.
We were at a distance when we noticed a bit of an altercation happening between the Black Lives Matter protesters and the counter-protesters at the top of the stairs leading up to Thames embankment, so we were rushing over there to try to calm the situation.
But even before we got there, only one guy was left – the rest of the counter-protesters had run off and left him by himself. He looked heavily intoxicated and didn’t know where he was.
So he sort of got passed down the stairs. People started to realise he was there and that he was by himself. I could see a Rastafarian man just trying to protect him and telling people to stay calm, to leave him alone.
But then people started to understand what was happening and they started to attack him. They started to throw punches, trying to get to him, all while this Rastafarian man and a couple of other protesters were trying to protect him, stop him from getting hurt.
So we had to try to get out there as quickly as we could, because we knew it was only a matter of time before it got a lot worse.
By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs there was a stampede going on. You couldn’t see anything. The guys who’d got there before me were basically sifting through people, trying to find where this guy was and try to protect him.
I came in just behind them.
I remember thinking, “The only thing I can do here, because we’re all going to get trampled at some point, is just scoop them up and carry them out to safety,” which is what I did. I walked him over to the police and said, “Here you go.”
I did it because, regardless of anyone’s opinions or views – we can worry about that later – but at that particular moment in time, you know, it’s only going to end one way and we didn’t want to stand by and let that happen. Because if you’re there and you don’t do anything, even if you’re not one of the people inflicting the harm, you’re almost complicit just by being there and standing by and watching and filming. We decided that we had to take action.
We’ve since set up an organisation, United To Change And Inspire (utcai.co.uk). We each have a pillar to work with – education, criminal justice, mental, youth development – and we’re going to work and align ourselves with individuals who are doing great work in those areas and hopefully use our new platform to further their cause, further the cause as a whole. Hopefully we can make some lasting change.
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