Two West Midlands Police officers have been suspended after they dragged a half-dressed Muslim woman out of a property in Birmingham.
The i website revealed that the incident took place on November 18 when police were called to the property to remove the woman who had been recently evicted and was refusing to leave.
According to i, video footage shows one officer saying: “What we can do is, we can either do it nice and fairly and you can get up and leave, or we can drag you out and then you can complain about me. I fear that if you stay here there is going to be a breach of the peace.”
The officers then proceeded to take her arms, to which she said: “I haven’t got any trousers on, I’m a Muslim woman with hijab on.”
The police placed her in handcuffs, before dragging her through the hallways of the property and leaving her outside. In the footage, she is heard screaming.
Speaking to i, the woman said: “The two men just grabbed me. They should not have touched me. I feel violated, I had nothing on the bottom. I have no words for it. If a normal person did this, what am I going to do, call the police? So they can do that again? They had no right to lay a finger on me. I’ve tried to block it out my mind… I felt humiliated.”
West Midlands Police has also referred the case to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which has begun an investigation.
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They said the two police officers had been suspended from duty while the case is investigated, adding they had been responding to a “report of a dispute between a tenant and a housing manager.”
“There was an initial suggestion that one party was barricaded in to their property. Officers attended and used force to remove a woman, who was partially undressed, from the building.
“The woman made it clear she was of Muslim faith. We understand how concerning this will be for the public and especially Muslim communities and we will fully support the IOPC in their investigation.”
