Death of Sheku Bayoh (2015)

From blackwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Sheku Ahmed Tejan Bayoh (30 September 1983 – 3 May 2015) died after being arrested by police in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. His death caused outrage and an independent inquiry by the government after a police investigation.

Sheku Bayoh with his children

Bayoh is born in Sierra Leone. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1995 as an underage child to flee the civil war in Sierra Leone. After living in London for five years, he moved to Fife, Scotland upon invitation from his sister, who had lived there since the 1990s. At the time of his death, Bayoh was studying to become a gas engineer. He was a father to two sons. [1]

Details of the Event

It was around 7:20 a.m. on a Sunday before the first two police officers appeared. They acted upon the 999 calls report of a black man with a knife. The young man seemed disoriented, wandering. He was behaving erratically, and he looked like he might be drunk or high on drugs.

The cops pulled their van to a fast stop right in front of him, the sirens and their screams pierced the silent morning. He no longer had a knife and seemed to be walking backwards, but two more police were arriving. They drew their batons and irritant sprays; they used them on him. A total of nine uniformed officers are soon on the scene.

A witness sees up to six policemen kneeling and lying across the man, and hears him shout: "Get off me". It was less than five minutes since the police arrived, and Bayoh was dying on the pavement, with his hands and legs bound. He never got back up.

Ninety minutes later, the father-of-two is pronounced dead in hospital, with 23 separate injuries found on his body.[2]

Racial Bias in Policing

Seeing the latest demonstrations in the United Kingdom and the United States fuelled by video clips of George Floyd's dying moments, Bayoh’s sister, Kadi Johnson, was reminded of the similar painful incident which took her brother’s life. She admitted that she regretted her decision to invite her brother over, she said, “That is the guilt that will live with me until the day I die.”

Responding to the clips of Floyd, Kadi commented, "The authorities here wanted to blame it all on the drugs he'd [Shaku Bayoh] taken. We don't condone his taking drugs, but he was not himself. And we believe that if Sheku was white, he would have been treated differently and still be alive today. When a black man dies at the hands of police, they always try to blame it on him, blame anything but those responsible. We're tired of this now. It is enough. This time, they chose the wrong family." [3]

Ongoing Inquiry

The judge in charge of the public investigation into the death in police custody of Sheku Bayoh has vowed to conduct a fearless investigation into the actions of the Scottish police and lawyers. Lord Bracadale, a former appeals court judge, said he wanted the authorities, the lord's lawyer's office and the police review committee to participate thoroughly and quickly with what would be an "inquisitorial" investigation that would re-investigate the whole case.

Bracadale recruited two non-Scotland assessors with extensive expertise in the area of police and misconduct: Michael Fuller, who was the UK's first black chief constable, and Raju Bhatt, a London-based human rights lawyer specialized in death in detention.

Bracadale said it was too early to predict how long the probe would take or when the public hearings would begin: the original assessment indicated that his staff wanted to review 50,000 records.

"It has now been over five years since the death of Mr Bayoh and I, and my team, are conscious of the length of time this has hung over all involved, particularly the Bayoh family. We will work with determination and focus to ensure the work can be completed as quickly as possible,” he said. [4]

Reference

  1. Death of Sheku Bayoh. en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  2. Daly, Mark and McKay, Calum. Sheku Bayoh: 'Why did my brother die in police custody?'. January 18, 2020. bbc.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  3. Daly, Mark and McKay, Calum. Sheku Bayoh: 'Why did my brother die in police custody?'. January 18, 2020. bbc.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.
  4. Carrell, Severin. Judge pledges 'inquisitorial' inquiry into Sheku Bayoh death. November 30, 2020. theguardian.com. Retrieved on Feb 3, 2021.