Keith Blakelock is still remembered many years after his brutal murder in 1985. But what about the many black men who have died in police custody in the decades following - how many people recall "their" names and how they died?
Some extracts from newspaper articles:
"In July 2017, Darren Cumberbatch died of multiple organ failure in hospital after being arrested by police at a probation hostel in Nuneaton, west Midlands. His family say the electrician’s body was covered in bruises and “strange marks” when they visited him in hospital............. An inquest heard he was punched 15 times by officers, and that police restraint, including use of Tasers and batons, contributed to Cumberbatch’s death. The coroner said the level of restraint used by Warwickshire Police was “excessive”.
"In 1998, Christopher Alder, a former British army paratrooper, was injured during a fight and ended up in hospital. He was then arrested for a breach of the peace and taken to Queens Gardens police station in Hull. CCTV footage shows him lying face down on the floor of the station, motionless, with his trousers around his ankles. Officers stand around laughing while he lies there, dying, for 10 minutes. A coroner's jury in 2000 returned a verdict that Alder was unlawfully killed. In 2002 five police officers went on trial charged with Alder's manslaughter and misconduct in public office, but were acquitted on the orders of the judge. In 2006 an Independent Police Complaints Commission report concluded that four of the officers present in the custody suite when Alder died were guilty of the "most serious neglect of duty" and “unwitting racism”. "
"In 2011, Kingsley Burrell died while detained by police at a mental health unit in Birmingham. An inquest found that prolonged restraint had been a significant factor. Again, three officers prosecuted for lying under oath were found not guilty."
In 2000, Zahid Mubarek was murdered by his racist cellmate Robert Stewart, who had a history of violence, at Feltham Young Offenders Institution. They were housed together despite the fact that Stewart’s hostility to BAME people was widely known.
"Sean Rigg, 40, was a physically fit musician -- but died from cardiac arrest and asphyxia after being detained by police in Brixton, south London in 2008. He suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and after emergency calls responding to reports of aggressive behavior, he was restrained and transported to a local police station in a van, dying shortly after arrival. The police involved in Rigg's arrest were cleared of allegations of misconduct last year, despite an inquiry ruling their methods of restraint had "more than minimally contributed to his death."
This month, Simeon Francis was found dead in a cell in Devon. The circumstances surrounding this incident are not yet clear.
"Research commissioned by the Sentencing Council published in January 2017 proved in effect that if you placed a white man and a BAME man in the same predicament with the same previous history, with the same or similar evidence, the BAME man was more likely to be stopped, arrested, charged, denied bail, convicted and sentenced to prison."
Despite various reports showing quite clearly that non-white people are as discriminated against in our justice system as they are in every other public arena, virtually nothing has been done to address this very serious issue. Is it any wonder frustration and anger has boiled up and spilled over into violent protests in this country and all over the globe.