RedHanded - #5 BLM - Sheku Bayoh

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

In this month's episode of our Black Lives Matter series, we discuss the death of Sheku Bayoh in the Scottish town of Kirkcaldy. Sheku died after he was pepper-sprayed and restrained by 4 police officers in 2015. The police cover-up, scandal and public inquiry that followed has made Sheku's death one of Scotland's most notorious cases. This is Sheku's story. Sources: Death in Custody: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bw8f21/disclosure-series-1-3-dead-in-police-custody https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53076269 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52754957 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/16/sheku-bayoh-brother-shouldnt-have-died-like-this-inquiry-family\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_drug https://www.inquest.org.uk/sheku-bayoh-timeline-nov2019 https://www.gov.scot/news/inquiry-into-the-death-of-sheku-bayoh/ https://www.inquest.org.uk/   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Ha Haunted Canada as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to our fifth installment now of our monthly Black Lives Matter series on Red Handed. The story we're covering today is possibly one of Scotland's most notorious and controversial cases.

At least that's how it's described in a lot of places that we read about it. And in some ways, it shares a lot of similarities to another UK case that we discussed a couple of months back, the case of Darren Cumberbatch. Much like in Darren's case, Sheku Bayoh was a young man who was in a severely distressed state and if different officers had arrived on the night in question, officers who had acted more appropriately, Sheku Bayo would most likely still be alive today. The other half of this story also gets into the insidious nature of police cover-ups as we highlight the efforts made by both the Scottish police and its unions to manipulate facts and downright lie about what happened in order to sway public opinion

and save their own skin. Sheku Bayoh was born in Sierra Leone in 1983, and aged 12, he moved to the UK to escape the civil war that was tearing his country apart. And heartbreakingly, I thought when I read this, Sheku spent the first five years of his time living alone in London as an unaccompanied minor at the age of 12. That just is so, so sad. I can't even cope. And a lot more common than you think. Yeah, absolutely.

So after this, after he spent five years living in London on his own at the age of 17, he moved to Scotland to live nearer to his sister. Not particularly having enjoyed school, Sheku relished the opportunity to start a new life in Scotland and get into the world of work. He moved to the town of Kirkcaldy and got himself an apprenticeship with the local council. He also worked as a community youth leader in a local racial awareness group. And in a devastating twist of irony, Sheku even gave talks to the local police in Kirkcaldy around racial bias against young ethnic minorities. By 2015, Sheku was 32 and he'd settled down with his partner Colette.

They had a baby boy, Isaac, and Sheku lived for Isaac he'd settled down with his partner Colette. They had a baby boy Isaac and Sheku lived for Isaac and his brother Tyler who was Sheku's son from a previous relationship. But shortly after Isaac was born Sheku would have a devastating run-in with the very people he'd spent his time trying to educate. On the 3rd of May 2015 Sheku went over to see his close friend Martin Dick. It was early in the morning and they'd planned to watch the much-hyped Mayweather vs Pacquiao boxing match that was set to take place early that morning. Apparently that match was a colossal letdown. I couldn't be medically less interested in boxing if I physically tried. However, when Sheku turned up at Martin's house,

something was wrong. Sheku wasn't responding properly to his mates and he seemed fairly out of it. Being a good bunch of mates, one of his friends decided to walk him home and let him sleep off whatever was causing his strange behaviour. Unfortunately, on the way back to Sheku's place, Sheku became irate and confused. He lashed out at his friend who decided that Sheku was close enough to make his own way home and left. Shek, his outburst was deeply uncharacteristic for the usually calm young man, who wasn't known to raise his voice, let alone his hands. His unusual behaviour would later be chalked up to traces of MDMA in his system, along with a designer drug sold in the UK as Flakka,

which is one of the many legal highs sold in America known as bath salts. And if you have ever looked into bath salts and the impact that it has on people who've taken it, it is terrifying. We don't have time to go into it here, but there are some horrifying stories that I've read about this. So because Flakka is a drug manufactured illegally as a quote-unquote designer drug, aimed to recreate the effects of other drugs, its exact chemical makeup changes hugely from batch to batch. However, the side effects of this drug can be severe paranoia, thoughts of self-harm or suicidal ideation, and even psychosis. By the time Sheku got home, his mental state had vastly deteriorated.

He went inside and grabbed a kitchen knife before walking back outside and pacing around in the empty roads of Kirkcaldy. So once again, very similarly like we saw to Darren, he's not in a good state, he's not in a good place. So several locals noticed Sheku doing this and rightly they called 999. Soon the police were on their way and these officers are only known for now at least as officers A, B, C and D. Officers A and B were the first to arrive at the scene but before they'd even found Sheku officer A had already come to his own conclusions about him. Despite knife crime and young men with knives not being unusual in Scotland, the officers who arrived at the scene couldn't see past the colour of Sheku's skin.

Officer A wrote in his witness statement that he, quote, kept thinking about Lee Rigby, which if you're in the UK in general, you'll know who Lee Rigby is. He was a soldier who was killed two years earlier by two Islamic terrorists on the street. He was beheaded with machete. And people like to point to Lee Rigby a lot when we're talking about BLM cases of black people being killed by police. You will see a lot of people comment on Facebook groups and things like that, being like, oh, well, what about Lee Rigby?

Kind of what about Lee Rigby? Of course, it's a tragedy. Of course, he was a soldier. But Lee Rigby is something that people will bring up time and time again when you talk about BLM in this country. And this is the thing about Lee Rigby is it was a horrendous attack and obviously completely inexcusable. But the two men who did it are in jail. So they were caught, they were tried, and they are in jail where they should be because of what they did. When people compare it to BLM cases, I'm like, but what's your point? Because what we're saying here is that there is never any accountability

for the people who killed somebody like Sheku Bayo. And I don't understand what the connection is that they're making necessarily. And also Lee Rigby's family have asked them to stop connecting him to these cases. Unfortunately, Officer A wasn't alone. Another officer who arrived later wrote in their witness statement that Sheku being, them to stop connecting him to these cases. Unfortunately, Officer A wasn't alone. Another officer who arrived later wrote in their witness statement that Sheku being, quote, a coloured male had, quote, potential terrorist connotations. So at 2015, it's no secret that coloured is a word that's not getting thrown around anymore. And this officer is writing it in their official

witness statement. This isn't just like something they've whatsapped somebody, they've written it in their official witness statement as coloured isn't just like something they've WhatsApped somebody. They've written it in their official witness statement as a coloured male. And, not just that, but written, because he's a coloured male, that he has potential terrorist connotations. There's nothing else going on there that would give him that indication that this is anything related to a terrorist attack. A 2018 BBC documentary called Disclosure, Dead in Custody, highlights Sheku's story, and we'll leave the link for it in the episode description.

The documentary features experts who shed serious doubt on the judgment of any police officer whose immediate go-to analysis of the situation they were in that night was a terrorist attack going down in the small town of Kirkcaldy at 7am on a Sunday. And on top of that, these experts question any officer who allowed race to play such a role in their judgment of an incident. By the time officers A and B had arrived at the scene, Sheku had dropped the knife. However, despite this, officer B still jumped from his vehicle with a pepper spray can in hand. Sheku walked towards the pair of officers with his arms locked by his sides and his palms facing them, clearly showing that he was no longer holding the knife. No effort was made to calmly communicate with Sheku or de-escalate the situation. Within 30 seconds, so not a particularly

long time to assess the situation but long enough to see that this man is no longer armed, Officer B had unloaded his can of pepper spray into Sheku's face. By the time a second police van had arrived, Sheku Bayo was making an understandable attempt to get away from the situation. Officer C, who had arrived in the second van, followed him up a short gravel path, shouting, not particularly calming, I would say. say and also to a man who's walking away despite admitting in his witness statement that he could not see a knife and saying that both of sheku's arms were down by his side officer c then proceeded to unload his full

can of pepper spray at sheku from behind before reaching for his baton. Officer D, who also arrived at the scene in the second police van, then ordered Sheku to put his hands behind his back before, quote, showing him a double strike from her baton, which apparently, according to this officer, didn't hit Sheku. Though I don't really understand how that would happen. It seems confusing. Despite Sheku now being unarmed and not using any physical force against the officers, within 30 seconds of arrival,

all four officers had physically assaulted him. I can understand getting a report of a man walking around at 7 o'clock in the morning, and it's May, so it would have been light. This is in daylight, with a kitchen knife, not not acting himself you're going to be alarmed and also officers have to protect themselves in situations of potential violence they don't know who he is they've made assumptions on who they think he is but they've been told he's wandering around with a kitchen knife but surely this seems like unreasonable force that's the

thing absolutely should somebody have responded to this call of course it should be taken incredibly Surely this seems like unreasonable force. That's the thing. Absolutely. Should somebody have responded to this call? Of course. It should be taken incredibly seriously. We don't know what this man is going to do. He's got a fucking kitchen knife. But when they're there and they can see that he's no longer armed and you can see that he's trying to walk away,

not using any physical force on you, it seems like they're really crossing the line and using extremely excessive force, especially because there are four of them. And you know, we've talked about this in the series before. We're not pretending like being a police officer isn't a dangerous job or isn't a difficult job to do. Of course it is. But why is it that we see so often in these cases that there's no attempt made to de-escalate and they go straight for excessive force being used and then end up killing people. This is the thing that is unacceptable because this isn't the

military. Even the way this is often reported, it's like civilians were there on the street. And I'm like, I don't even almost want to use that phrase because it makes it seem like we're in some sort of a war zone, you know? They're there to protect the public and that doesn't feel like that's always what happens after these assaults so he's been assaulted four times by four adult people um sheku who was clearly mentally unstable and in a similar state to darren cumberbatch who we have covered before made another attempt to escape the situation during which he knocked officer d over seconds later sheku was tackled to the ground and restrained at the arms and legs by at least five officers, several of whom were laying on top of him. Eight minutes later, an ambulance arrived,

and an hour and a half after being taken to hospital, Sheku Bayo was dead. And that's the thing, should you die for acting out on MDMA? Is that the cost of that action? I don't think so. All of the officers involved refused to give witness statements for 32 days. In fact, the only statement given on the day of Sheku's death was from a senior officer who said that he had been holding a machete and even suggested that one of the officers had been hit with it. By the time the officers did give statements, which was over a month later, they had concocted a story to completely vilify a now dead Sheku Bayou because let's face it, he can't defend

himself. Exactly and I'm also like can we just pause and like reflect on the fact that these officers were allowed to go 32 days without giving a witness statement like they weren't forced to give a witness statement as soon as it fucking happened like we're going to come onto this later but it's just the idea of the institution just trying to fucking protect itself and throw anyone else it can under the bus. So, Officers B and C both said in their eventual witness statements that they gave that Sheku had pushed Officer D to the ground and then stamped on her viciously. All of the officers went on to mention Sheku's strength and size. Officer E, who arrived later, said that Sheku Bayo was, quote, the biggest male I've ever seen. The police federation then gave these statements to the press.

The media painted Sheku Bayo as this great big hulk of a black male who had been overpowering this tiny white Officer D, pushed her to the floor and then threatened her with a knife before stamping on her. Had this happened, that is incredibly threatening, I understand. However, CCTV evidence appears to show quite the opposite. CCTV shows how Officer D hit the ground. Yes, that absolutely happened when Sheku Bayu tried to run away. But it also showed Officer D promptly getting back onto her feet

and Sheku Bayu running away from the scene. She was certainly never stamped on. Now, this is probably why Officer D did not mention getting stamped on anywhere in her original statement, nor did the three other witnesses who were just passers-by on the street when they gave their evidence. In fact, other than officers B and C's witness statement, there is no evidence that Sheku stamped on anyone at all.

But of course, that didn't stop it from going to the press. And as for being, quote, the biggest male Officer E had ever seen, Sheku wasn't even the biggest male in his arrest. Sheku was 5 foot 10 and weighed 12 stone which is 76 kilos and less than me. Officers A, B and C were all taller than him. In fact, Officers A and B stood at 6 foot 4 and Officer B weighed 25 stone.

158 kilograms. It's such a typical thing, isn't it? Where they're just like, oh, he's so huge. And like he was overpowering everybody with his brute strength. And we had no choice but four of us to fucking pile on top of him and pepper spray him. And it's like, he's five foot ten, mate. And like 12 stone. That's like, that's just average. And footage from recordings taken by passersby clearly show one of the large officers lying across Sheku's chest while he was pinned to the ground. And Sheku Bayo's post-mortem revealed that there were burst blood vessels in

his eyes, which is, as we all know, a common sign of asphyxiation. He also had 28 other injuries, including baton strikes to the back of the head. And despite all of this, his death was officially recorded as, quote, sudden death of a man under the all of this his death was officially recorded as quote sudden death of a man under the influence of various drugs whilst being restrained 28 injuries and signs of asphyxiation and they're like sudden death no idea fucking hell five months after shaku's death the bbc revealed that officer a whose real name is pc alanC. Alan Patton, was known to, quote, hate black people and had a history of violence towards his own family. Ema Anwar, a prominent human rights lawyer, has fought hard for the Bayeux family in the search for answers around their son's death,

stating that he's sure race played a key role in Sheku's death. The charity inquest that was set up to fight for the families of people who've died in police custody also say that they feel race played a key role. Despite this, Scotland's lead prosecutor told the Bio family that there wasn't enough evidence to charge any of the officers involved. And when that BBC documentary that we mentioned that we'll link below was released, the fucking police unions in Scotland lost their minds. Go watch it, go read the comments their minds. Go watch it.

Go read the comments that they've said about it. They say that it's false, that it's all completely like just demonising them. And I'm like, really? Your officers lied their fucking arses off and you're saying that this documentary was set out to demonise them. It's unbelievable, honestly. Well, I want to say it's unbelievable. It's tragically wholly believable, I want to say it's unbelievable. It's tragically wholly believable these days, isn't it? But last year, so in 2019, after years of

pressure from campaign groups nationwide and Sheku Bayou's family themselves, the Scottish government finally announced a full public inquiry into Sheku's death. In March this year, so 2020, five years after the incident, the remit for that inquiry was finally announced. Justice Secretary Hamza Yousaf has said that the public inquiry will examine the facts before, during and after Sheku Bayou's death. In other words, they say that they will be looking into, did the police kill a man and then make up a load of nonsense to sway public opinion well from just our few days looking into this yes it yes it absolutely appears that that's exactly what they did but we're probably going to have to wait years and years and years for them to

come up with a bunch of data some random findings that none of those suggestions or recommendations will be probably taken on board because that's what we've seen time and time again with the Met as we know all too well. And sadly but unsurprisingly still no officers have been charged with what happened to Sheku. And actually it's recently been revealed for the first three years after Sheku's death PC Alan Patton, the guy who said that he hates black people and is a massive abuser to his own family, was put on leave with full pay. So there you go. That's nice, isn't it? And I think that this case, and this whole series in general actually, the thing that we wanted to highlight was it's the crimes, of course,

it's the murders that have happened, but it's the cover-ups, the arse-covering, the lying, the lack of accountability, the failure of the justice system, or for the institution of policing, whether it's here in the UK, in the US, Australia, wherever it may be, to hold itself accountable. And that is the problem in and of itself. When police officers who kill a black person, and then there is evidence that they crossed a line in managing that situation, they used unnecessary force and then also clearly lied in the aftermath. The message that the system is sending when these police officers aren't punished or held accountable in any way is saying that black lives don't matter. Is that the institution of policing is more important.

It doesn't matter that this person died. And there was a quote that I heard just like when I was watching a documentary one day and then I went and looked up who that quote was actually from. And it's a quote from a man named Stokely Carmichael, who was a civil rights organizer from the US. And I also think he may have been a prominent member of the Black Panther movement as well back in the day. And the quote is, if a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism isn't a question of attitude, it's a question of power. And I think that when I heard that, that quote quote for me like really perfectly summed up how racism isn't about people saying

ignorant shit on the street to you like of course that's hurtful but what stokely is saying is that that's not really racism that's bigotry real racism needs power to survive and real racism is therefore always institutional and that's why stories like Sheku's and each case that we've talked about in our BLM series so far, where the system itself allowed for the cover-up to occur, and for those responsible to escape accountability and punishment, are so, so important to share. So thank you guys for listening again, as ever. Like we said, we'll leave the link to the BBC documentary Disclosure in the episode description.

So go check it out. It's really well made. And we'll be back next month with another story. So we'll see you then. See you then. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

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