Police in the UK have arrested a 12-year-old boy for sending racist messages to a Premier League footballer.
The child from Solihull reportedly sent a series of posts to Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha which included a message that read: “You better not score tomorrow you black ****”
Zaha took to Twitter and Instagram where he shared screenshots with his almost 900k followers of the messages he’d received, along with the boy’s social media account.
Crystal Palace manager, Roy Hodgson, supported Zaha’s decision to make the messages public.
“I think it’s important,” he said.” I think it is being highlighted very much anyway with the Black Lives Matter movement, and everyone seems to be making such an effort to eradicate this type of behaviour.
“It is very saddening on the day of a game that a player wakes up to this cowardly and despicable abuse,” Hodgson said. “I think it is right that Wilf made people aware of it.”
West Midlands Police tweeted on Monday that they had arrested the 12-year-old child in connection to the messages.
“#ARRESTED We were alerted to a series of racist messages to a footballer today after looking into them and conducting checks, we have arrested a boy,” the department said.
“The 12-year-old from #Solihull has been taken to custody. Thanks to everyone who raised it. Racism won’t be tolerated.”
Elsewhere in the UK, police recorded 45,267 offences involving knives in 2019, the highest on record according to official statistics. Good to see the UK police still have their priorities in order.
