By New Worker
correspondent
HUNDREDS
of members of families who have lost a close relative through a death in
custody gathered on a corner of Trafalgar Square last Saturday with banners,
placards and leaflets to commemorate their loved ones, and to demand an end to
deaths in custody.
Since
1990 a total of 1,518 people have died in custody and their families are
demanding justice.
Some died in police stations, police vans,
prisons and secure mental hospitals. All had died needlessly; but in every case
the killers have not been brought to justice.
The
victims included: Sean Rigg, Seni Lewis, Jimmy Mubenga, Roger Sylvester, Shehu
Bayoh, Rebecca Overy, Ricky Bishop, Jason Thomson, Paul Coker, Thomas Orchard,
Joy Gardener, Kingsley Burrell and many, many more.
Jimmy Mubenga died on a plane as he
resisted a forced deportation, Roger Sylvester died in a police van after being
arrested when he accidentally shut himself out of his home while naked.
Rebecca Overy, aged 18, killed herself in
an adult mental health secure unit, where she had been transferred suddenly and
without warning.
Rebecca had been in a secure adolescent
psychiatric unit from the age of 13 years, where she had an established network
of support and friends of her own age. Her mother described her as being a
bubbly teenager. She had posters in her room and enjoyed making jewellery. She had enrolled in an animal care course and
had planned to do some voluntary work.
Her doctors were very encouraging and led
her to believe that she had a future. Rebecca believed that she would be
returning back home after she turned 18. Instead, a day after she turned 18,
she was moved to an adult mental health facility. Her mother said that her
spark disappeared and she became despondent.
Sean Rigg suffered mental health problems
and members of the public called the police when he was acting strangely. Four
police officers chased Rigg, who was handcuffed and restrained in a prone, face
down position as officers leant on him for eight minutes.
Arrested
for assaulting a police officer, public disorder and theft of a passport –
which was actually his own – he was then placed face-down with his legs bent
behind him in the caged rear section of a police van and transported to Brixton
police station. During the journey "his mental and physical health deteriorated",
and he was "extremely unwell and not fully conscious" when eventually
taken out of the van.
One of the arresting officers was captured
on the police station's CCTV claiming that Rigg was "faking it".
Sheku Bayou, an engineering student from
Sierra Leone living in Kirkcaldy, Fife, died in police custody last May. Police
gave the family five different versions of how he died on the same day.
His body was covered in injuries from a
very violent assault and he is believed to have died of asphyxiation.
The demonstrators marched slowly and with
dignity from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street, where six bereaved family
members delivered a letter on behalf of the United Families campaign.
Amongst them was Cephus “Uncle Bobby”
Johnson who had travelled from the United States to be there, commemorating his
nephew, Oscar Grant, who was shot by police in Oakland in 2009.
He said: “I’ve been asked this question:
‘why come and stand with United Families and Friends?’ A black life murdered in
Oakland is no different from a black life murdered in London. Black lives
matter everywhere.”
He added: "It’s going to take a mass
movement to make change across the world – in London and in the United States.”
New Worker 6th November 2015
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