The video of the arrest at gunpoint of the soccer player Tiémoué Bakayoko, from Milan, by the Italian police has gone viral this Monday on social networks, where it has been labeled “racist”. Given the reactions, the police have justified what happened as a control that “occurred in an operational context that justified the adoption of the highest security measures” and that “was carried out in an absolutely consistent manner,” according to the Italian media.
UNUSUAL: Bakayoko has been forced to get out of his car in the middle of the city of Milan and has been searched by an agent while another pointed his gun at his vehicle. The moment when the bald guy finds out that he is frisking a Milan player is tremendous. His face is poetry. pic.twitter.com/0MhBai63yZ
— World AC Milan ???? ????1️⃣9️⃣????⚫ (@WorldACMilan) July 17, 2022
The scene that appears in the video reflects the arrest on July 3 by three police officers of the 27-year-old “rossonero” player, French but of Ivorian origin, while driving through the center of Milan in a black SUV.
The video shows how while an agent proceeded to search him, the other two companions held the other members of the car at gunpoint, a scene that stopped when the agents realized that it was the Milan midfielder.
After the recognition, they let the player and his companions go, after some pats on the back, an ending that has aroused the anger of users on social networks who have branded it “racist”. “The images of Bakayoko’s arrest suggest ethnic profiling. A discriminatory practice that in a non-famous person could have had serious consequences,” wrote the NGO Amnesty International.
According to the police, the reason for the control was because the vehicle that Bakayoko was driving, on loan from Chelsea, coincided with a suspicious SUV that had fled from a shooting in the area, the Italian media reported.
EFE
