NO POLICE OFFICER will face misconduct charges as a result of events surrounding the death of Rashan Charles in Hackney last July. Charles died as police attempted to arrest him.
The incident was automatically reported to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Charles was being pursued by police and darted into a corner shop, where the last moments of his life were caught on CCTV – images which did indeed give cause for concern.
The IOPC has now concluded its investigation. It recommended that no police officer involved in the incident should face misconduct or gross misconduct charges. However, it did recommend that one of the officers involved should be charged with unsatisfactory performance in respect of their use of first aid, delay in calling an ambulance and some aspects of the technique he used to restrain Charles.
The Metropolitan Police has agreed to charge the officer with unsatisfactory performance and an internal disciplinary hearing will now go ahead. The officer who will face these charges was referred to by the IOPC as “BX47”.
Responding to the IOPC report, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Martin, who is responsible for Professionalism, said, “The conclusion of the IOPC investigation supports the recent finding by the inquest jury, that BX47 lawfully and justifiably apprehended and restrained Mr Charles. When it became apparent Mr Charles was in difficulty, first aid and CPR was carried out but nothing BX47 nor their colleague could have done would have saved his life.
“The IOPC investigation has identified some learning to take forward for BX47 and this will be progressed. The death of anyone after involvement with police is a matter of deep regret and our thoughts and sympathies remain with all those affected.”
Watch the CCTV footage: #JusticeForRash – the CCTV
The IOPC seems to have taken the same approach as the inquest jury: that although there were concerns about how officer BX47 behaved, this officer did not directly cause Charles’s death. This view is understandable, but it is still controversial.
When he was in the shop, Charles swallowed a small package of drugs. Police Officer BX47 held him down as he struggled. The CCTV footage looks as if Officer BX47 is holding him down, assuming that he is resisting arrest – while Charles is not so much resisting arrest as desperately struggling to breathe.
Medically, it may well be the case that it was the package lodged in his throat that stopped Charles from being able to breathe and was, technically, the direct cause of his death. If, instead of being pinned down, he had been given the Heimlich manoeuvre, would the package have been dislodged? There is no way of knowing.
What is of concern is that the police officer pinning down the struggling man – who said that he was aware Charles had swallowed something at the time – does not appear to have considered that Charles may be choking to death.
The package may have been what killed him; the package may have gone down too far to have been removed manually, even by an ambulance crew – again, we don’t know. But Police Officer BX47’s actions, at the very least, stopped Charles getting a last chance at the earliest opportunity.
We may hear more, after the hearing into Officer BX47’s actions, about what motivated him to keep pinning Charles down. This may be our last chance to see the police examine the potential racism of this case. Did Officer BX47 look at Charles – a black man, being chased through Hackney – and assume he must be a drug dealer? Did a prejudice convince BX47 that Charles’s struggles were part of an attempt to get away? Did a prejudice close the officer’s mind to the possibility that Charles was struggling to breathe? These are awkard questions to ask – but they should be asked, and answered, in public.
The Metropolitan Police have said that they will respond, in due course, to the coroner’s recommendations on updating the training of officers. We have to hope that one of their responses will be to stress to officers that if they have seen a suspect swallow something and that person then struggles when you hold them down, they may not be resisting arrest.
Police officers have to consider the possibility that they may be choking to death. Perhaps first aid could not have saved Rashan Charles. That may not be the case if there is a next time.
•Read more about this story: Rashan Charles: accidental death
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