Sprinter Ricardo dos Santos 'not surprised' to be stopped by London police for the second time

Ricardo dos Santos, a Portuguese sprinter, was pulled over early Sunday morning while driving in Britain’s capital. Dos Santos had previously been arrested and searched by the same police service along with his partner and child in July 2020.

In a series of tweets, dos Santos posted dashcam footage from his car from Sunday’s incident, which showed the sprinter stopping and several police officers approaching the vehicle.

In the tweetsdo Santos expressed his frustration.

“I’m not surprised I had to go through this again. As I was driving home last night, 7 armed @metpoliceuk officers stopped me because they thought I was on the phone while driving. At their request I stopped when it was safe to do so the thread began.

“After I stopped, two officers ran to either side of the car, slammed a clenched fist on my window and tried to open the car door. Not knowing how to use a Tesla handgrip, he took out his baton in frustration, ready to smash the glass.” dos Santos claimed in his post.

“Irritated that after 2 years nothing has changed,” wrote dos Santos.

The Metropolitan Police issued a statement on: Twitter, suggesting the 27-year-old failed to stop in time. The statement said: “We are aware of images on social media showing part of a stop on a car.

“Sunday, August 14, around 4 a.m., armed officers were on routine patrol in a flagged police vehicle. They saw a car heading east… and feared that the driver may be using a cell phone behind the wheel.

“The officers clearly told the car to stop, but they couldn’t and they called for further assistance. The driver stopped about 5 minutes later… and the officers spoke to him about why they wanted to stop the vehicle.

“Since then, we have reached out to the driver via Twitter to invite him to contact us if he would like to discuss this matter further.”

Dos Santos responded to the police statement with another on Sunday tweetstating that he only showed part of the video because “the rest will be with my lawyer”.

In a further statement posted to the Metropolitan Police’s Twitter on Monday, the agency wrote that they had “registered this matter as a public complaint” and “referred it to the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct), recognizing the public interest.”

DailyExpertNews contacted dos Santos representatives for further comment and was told they would not make an official statement, but referred DailyExpertNews to an interview he did with the BBC.

“I posted this video because these things are very much going on… my intention was for people to actually see it and debate it, and understand that although the police have taken special measures, nothing is or will change,” he told the BBC’s 5Live.

Dos Santos and his partner, Team GB sprinter Bianca Williams, spoke to DailyExpertNews Senior Sports Analyst Darren Lewis in 2020 about their previous encounter with police.

After the couple, with their then three-month-old son in the car, were stopped and searched by police officers, the images were seen en masse on social media.

Williams said in that interview that she should teach their son that “he can be stopped by the police because of the color of his skin.”

Five Metropolitan police officers will face a gross misconduct hearing into the July 2020 incident following an investigation by police watchdog, the IOPC.