Man dies following contact with police - June 2017, Metropolitan Police Service

On 15 June 2017, five plainclothes Metropolitan Police Services (MPS) officers were on patrol in an unmarked car in Newham, east London, as part of an operation intended to tackle gang related crime.

The officers’ attention was drawn to a Mercedes, and they signalled to the driver to pull over. Both vehicles pulled over at 9.59pm.

Witness and officer accounts indicate that the officers restrained one of the male passengers from the vehicle on the ground. One officer discharged his incapacitant spray before the man was handcuffed. At some stage, the officers saw a number of plastic wraps on the ground near the man’s head. They then realised that he had lost consciousness.

One of the officers contacted the Control Room at 10.05pm to request an ambulance. The request was relayed to the London Ambulance Service at 10.07pm.

The first paramedic arrived at the scene at 10.18pm. On checking the man’s airway, he saw that it was blocked by a number of plastic wraps. Paramedics and hospital staff subsequently removed a number of wraps from the man’s throat, but he remained in a critical condition and died on 21 June 2017. The wraps were tested and found to contain cocaine and heroin.

Witnesses alleged that the officers used excessive force to restrain the man. Some stated the officers put pressure on his throat, and continued restraining him after he had lost consciousness. We investigated these allegations. We also considered whether the officers called an ambulance promptly, and whether they provided sufficient and appropriate first aid care to the man. We also looked at one of the officers’ use of incapacitant spray.

Our investigators obtained accounts from the five officers who restrained the man, and from a number of other police and non-police witnesses. Investigators also obtained and reviewed mobile phone, CCTV and body-worn camera footage, police radio transmissions and documentary evidence. They also considered relevant policies, guidance and expert opinions.

We considered that the officers’ use of force in the circumstances was reasonable in order to retain control of the situation, including the use of handcuffs. The post-mortem did not find injuries supporting a finding of excessive force. We were of the view that officers had no case to answer in respect of these allegations.

Evidence indicated that one of the officers called an ambulance 1 minute 43 seconds after the man was first seen to be unwell. We considered that this could be considered as a failure for the officer to perform their duties satisfactorily, and should be dealt with by way of management action. We also considered that two other officers could have contacted an ambulance as a priority and did not do so and this be handled through management action.

We also found that one officer had told the control room that the man was conscious and responsive when requesting an ambulance, at a time when the man was in fact unconscious. Although this had no impact on the response time of the ambulance, we were of the view that this mistake should be dealt with by way of management action.

We were of the view that the care provided to the man after incapacitant spray was used and officers’ efforts to try to force the man’s mouth open to check his airway both appeared to be in line with guidance, and that officers had no case to answer in respect of this allegation.

Witnesses indicated that one of the officers discharged incapacitant spray at close range – and much closer than the one metre minimum distance in guidelines. We were of the view that one officer had a case to answer for misconduct in respect of the distance from which they deployed incapacitant spray.

Our investigation also looked at potential issues of discrimination in this investigation. Although, in our opinion, there was no evidence indicating that officers had discriminated against the man, we found that one officer’s comments about one the witnesses indicated some preconceptions, and that this should be addressed via management action.

After reviewing our report the MPS agreed with our views, and confirmed that the officers would receive management action as detailed above.

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