A Nigerian mother has told how her 23-year-old son died gasping and shouting “I can’t breathe” as he was held down by 11 police officers in the United Kingdom 10 years ago.
When his body went limp, officers simply walked away, believing he was faking it.
But his brain had been starved of oxygen. He was placed on life support, but died a few days later.
Seni is among more than 180 people from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic (BAME) communities who have died following contact with police since 1990.
The revelation comes as the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparks protests across the US and in the UK.
Seni’s mother, Aji, told The Sunday Mirror of UK: “They held him over 45 minutes until he went limp. Then, instead of treating him as a medical emergency, they simply walked away. They believed he was faking it.
“They left our son on the floor of a locked room, all but dead. We struggle to comprehend he died simply because police and medical staff failed in their duty to treat him as a human being.
“I can’t watch the George Floyd video, because he is saying the same thing as Seni said: “I can’t breathe”.’
An inquest undertaken seven years later concluded ‘excessive force’ was used on Seni that was ‘disproportionate and unreasonable.’
But a gross misconduct hearing held behind closed doors by the metropolitan police concluded that none of the six officers breached standards of professional behaviour in relation to the death.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found that six of the 11 officers should face a misconduct hearing over the death in their second investigation.
Deborah Coles, director of charity INQUEST, said the outcome was ‘bitter’ for Seni’s family.
“Seni was brutalised, neglected and failed and yet no one person at an individual or senior management level has been held to account,” she said.
“After a seven-year wait, this is a bitter outcome for Seni’s family. We are a lesser society for a system that fails to hold to account police action leading to these preventable deaths from our community.”
Theresa May, as home secretary, met the Lewis family in 2015 to discuss the case.
She wrote in a letter to them: “It is clearly unsatisfactory that families should have to go to court to quash an IPCC report in order to secure a second investigation into the death of a loved one.”
The family also campaigned for a law which would require that any use of force on patients is recorded, that staff are better trained and that every mental health unit should have to publish a policy on the use of force.
It became law in 2018 as the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act following a vote in parliament.
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