Man dies after being restrained - Metropolitan Police Service, July 2017

In the early hours of 22 July 2017 six Metropolitan Police Service officers were on night duty patrol in a marked police vehicle in north-east London. They spotted a car being driven in a suspicious manner and ran some checks. They requested the car to stop, but one of the passengers got out of the car and made off on foot, and the suspicious car drove off.

Officers decided to follow the man who had left the car. Two officers gave chase on foot. The man ran into a shop and one of the officers ran behind him. The officer detained the man and took him to the ground. The officer believed the man may be trying to put an item in his mouth that he thought may be drugs, He tried to stop the man from doing so by attempting to control his hands. He asked the man a number of times to spit out what he thought he had swallowed and applied pressure to the man’s jaw.

Once they were both on the ground, the officer handcuffed the man in the rear position with the help of a member of the public and turned the man onto his side. The officer realised the man was having difficulty breathing and requested help from his colleagues. The officer also called for an ambulance.

A second officer, who was a trained police medic, arrived, took the handcuffs off the man and started administering first aid. Paramedics arrived and removed a package from the man’s airway. The man was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead 15 minutes after arriving. The post-mortem conducted by the Home Office pathologist recorded the probable cause of death as cardiac arrest caused by upper airway obstruction by foreign body.

Our investigators obtained statements from the officers and from members of the public, paramedics and hospital staff. They listened to radio transmissions from police and paramedics and instructed a use of force expert and a survivability expert. Investigators obtained and viewed CCTV from a number of sources, as well as body-worn video footage from the police officers. They also reviewed and analysed records and documentation produced by police, paramedics and hospital staff. They considered applicable force and national policies and guidance.

The officer who restrained the man was notified they were under investigation for a number of allegations, including that they continued to restrain the man after becoming aware he was suffering from a medical emergency, failed to call an ambulance immediately, and continued to restrain the man when believing the man had something in his mouth.

Based on the evidence available we were of the opinion that, although use of restraint may have been reasonable, the nature of the restraint had deviated from recognised techniques. We were of the view that the officer’s performance may be considered to be unsatisfactory and should be addressed.

Evidence showed that the officer was aware shortly after taking the man to the floor that this was a medical emergency, and called colleagues (one of whom, the officer knew, was a trained police medic) and provided first aid – albeit not in accordance with their training – but did not immediately call for an ambulance, as required by policy. We considered these failings were due to the officer ‘freezing’ due to fatigue and the stressful and highly dynamic nature of the incident, and were not deliberate. We were of the opinion that these failures should be dealt with as unsatisfactory performance.

After reviewing our report the MPS agreed. The officer received management action.

We completed our investigation in May 2018 but waited until the inquest into the man’s death had concluded to publish our findings, in summer 2018.