Author: 4WardEver UK

4WardEver UK

Police watchdog admits that investigations must ‘speed up’

IOPC website

source: BBC News
published: 21 December 2018

The police watchdog has admitted its investigations take too long – with officers facing misconduct probes suspended on full pay for years. Data shows almost half of the UK’s suspended officers have been off-duty for at least a year.

One, who has retrained as a priest, told the BBC he has spent five years being paid “unnecessarily” for a job he does not want to do. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it must do better.

From the 31 forces that provided information to the BBC through a Freedom of Information request, 71 of the 153 officers (46%) who were fully suspended from duty in October 2018 had been suspended since at least November 2017.

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4WardEver UK

Sheku Bayoh: Fresh questions over death in police custody

Refugees on a boat

source: BBC News
published: 17 December 2018

New evidence uncovered by BBC Scotland has raised fresh questions about the way police officers treated a man who died in their custody. Fife father-of-two Sheku Bayoh, 31, died in 2015 after being restrained by police in Kirkcaldy.

CCTV, other footage and documents obtained by the BBC casts doubt on some of the officers’ accounts of the events that led to the death. Police Scotland said they could not comment while the case was ongoing.

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4WardEver UK

Oscar Grant’s family fights to rename the station where he died

Oscar Grant Muralsource: The Root
published: 12 November 2018

Almost 10 years ago, Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer in Oakland, California, on New Year’s Eve. With the anniversary of his death approaching, Grant’s family is asking for BART and the city of Oakland to recognize him by renaming the station where he was killed.

According to KGO-TV, Grant’s family pleaded with BART’s board of directors last week to name the Fruitvale station after him. It would be an act of memorial in a country that far too frequently fails to memorialize the most painful, most divisive, and most traumatic events for marginalized communities.

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