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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt has just been a lot. I am in a lot of pain daily. It’s so unbelievable. I am being discriminated against for racism due to the color of my skin. I am not the only one selling detox tea over there. Why didn\u2019t they arrest other white citizens selling similar detox tea around the same place?\u201d said Soyemi, a single mother of twin boys.<\/span><\/p>\n She posted about the incident on social media, and it has been viewed and shared thousands of times.On Thursday, the London Police Service, LPS, said it is conducting an internal review to understand what happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “While we disagree with some of the particulars of how this interaction has been described, the LPS takes all allegations of this nature very seriously, and as such the chief has directed that a review of this incident be conducted,” Const. Sandasha Bough wrote in an email to CBC News.<\/span><\/p>\n A London police news release issued May 11, a day after the incident, says an officer had approached the woman and she “refused to leave when directed. When the officer advised the woman that she was under arrest for trespassing, she resisted arrest and became combative with police.”<\/span><\/p>\n The release says more officers were dispatched to help, and at that time “the suspect continued to assault the officer and resist arrest. Both the officer and the suspect sustained minor injuries,” it says.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Soyemi, she was in the White Oaks Mall parking lot talking to people about the tea she sells as an independent contractor when she was approached by a security guard, Soyemi said she told the guard she planned to leave within an hour.<\/span><\/p>\n “Because I’m still new here in London, I haven’t met a lot of people and I usually go to the mall where people leave their homes and go,” said Soyemi, who moved from Toronto to London six months ago.<\/span><\/p>\n She left Nigeria in 2018, and said she supports her family with her tea sales and money from the Ontario Works program.<\/span><\/p>\n Soyemi said that when a police van pulled up alongside her, she didn’t realize it was for her.<\/span><\/p>\n “(The female officer) came out of the van and charged at me. She didn’t have any conversation, I didn’t get to see who she was-she just came right out of the van and tried to hold on to me.”<\/span><\/p>\n Soyemi said she stepped back and yelled to the officer, “‘Don’t touch me. I didn’t do anything so why are you coming to touch me?'”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n CERTAINLY, Good journalism costs a lot of money. Without doubt, only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government. We are ready to hold every corrupt government accountable to the citizens.<\/b> To continually enjoy free access to the best investigative journalism in Nigeria, we are requesting of you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavor.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Your donation is voluntary \u2014 please decide how much and how often you want to give. For offline donation, email: letters@nigeriastandardnewspaper.com or call +2348037128048 (Nigeria) or +16825834890 (United States of America)<\/b><\/p>\n [pff-paystack id=<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LAWLESSNESS: British Police Officers under investigation for punching a Nigerian lady, SARAH SOYEMI in the eyes for selling detox tea outside White Oaks Mall without explanation *Eye witness account: \u201cA woman was selling detox tea outside White Oaks Mall. A police officer alighted from the car, grabbed her without explanation and another officer punched her, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>36-year-old Soyemi who was selling detox tea said a police officer grabbed her without explanation and another officer punched her, leaving her with a black eye, before she was charged with various offences.\u00a0<\/span>She was charged last week with failing to leave the premises when directed, resisting arrest and assaulting a peace officer.<\/span><\/p>\nBy contributing to NAIJA STANDARD NEWSPAPER, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all without fear or favor.<\/b><\/h1>\n