The police officer who restrained Rashan Charles before he died has admitted he failed to follow some of the safety rules relating to such incidents.
Charles died aged 20 on 22 July last year after restraint by Metropolitan police officers in Hackney, east London.
The officer, who chased Charles into a shop, where he restrained him, cannot be identified and is referred to as BX47. He has been with the Met for a decade. Prior to that, he was a police community support officer for two years.
BX47 has completed 21 different safety training courses during his career, including emergency life support and first aid, and has been a member of the Met’s territorial support group since 2010.
At a three-week inquest into Charles’s death at St Pancras coroner’s court in central London, the officer confirmed he had not turned on his body-worn camera at the beginning of the incident, when he started chasing Charles in the street, believing he was acting suspiciously. BX47 said he was relatively new to the equipment.
On the night of the incident, the officer used a “seatbelt” armlock to take Charles to the ground before a member of the public, referred to in court as witness one, helped hold him still so the officer could handcuff him.
Once he had, the officer turned Charles on his side and attempted several “abdominal thrusts” before an officer who was more experienced in first aid arrived. The inquest heard the officer had told Charles nine times to “spit it out”, in reference to what he suspected was drugs Charles may have swallowed.
Jude Bunting of Doughty Street Chambers, the barrister for Charles’ family, suggested the officer could have tried to de-escalate the situation.
“It would have been difficult to calmly speak to him as he was running away from me,” the officer said.
He added that his primary concern was for Charles’s safety, although BX47 said he did not follow police procedure to call an ambulance as soon as it is thought someone has something in their mouth they may swallow.
He also said that although he conducted breathing checks on Charles, they were not for the 10 seconds recommended in police safety manuals. The officer confirmed he did not assess the condition of Charles’s skin as per safety guidance in these situations.
When asked by Bunting if he had forgotten his safety training, the officer replied: “At that point, there was a lot going on. I was monitoring him and thinking what to do next.”
He suspected Charles had put something in his mouth that he thought might be drugs. Later analysis found the package to be a mixture of caffeine and paracetamol.
Charles, who has been described as caring and generous by his family, was initially shown to struggle when he was restrained by the officer.
The two officers involved in the incident and two other witnesses, known as witness one and witness two, have been granted anonymity for the proceedings.
The press and public have been barred from seeing the jury, coroner and witnesses, despite the coroner, Mary Hassell, rejecting claims that there was a “direct threat to officers’ lives”.
The Guardian appealed to Hassell to be allowed to see the proceedings. But she ruled that a black curtain concealing the courtroom from press and public must remain in place while the witnesses granted anonymity give evidence.
Charles’s death came weeks after that of Edson Da Costa, who died aged 25 following restraint by police officers in Newham, east London. Da Costa and Charles were among five young black men to have died in circumstances involving police restraint in England in 2017.
The case continues.
