Police officer accused of telling ‘a pack of lies’ over death in custody

originally by: The Independent
published: 29 June 2012

A Metropolitan police constable involved in physically restraining a man who died soon after in custody has been accused at an inquest of telling “a pack of lies” after photographic evidence confirmed he held the detainee’s face down for far longer than he claimed.

PC Richard Glasson was one of three officers involved in restraining Sean Rigg, an acutely mentally unwell man, who died in Brixton police station in south London in August 2008.

PC Glasson was accused of using “inappropriate and excessive” physical force on Mr Rigg’s back which could have caused him to asphyxiate.

1 July 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Shaun Beasley’s death partly due to neglect, jury rules

originally by: The Independent
published: 29 June 2012

Two private companies with lucrative prison and police contracts across Britain have been criticised by a jury for the role they played in the suicide of a vulnerable inmate with mental health problems.

Shaun Beasley, 29, was found hanging in his cell at Parc prison in Bridgend, south Wales in August 2010. He had a history of self harm and had previously made several serious suicide attempts.

A jury at the inquest into his death ruled that he “took his own life in circumstances contributed to by neglect of healthcare and prison”.

19 June 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Rodney King, key figure in L.A. riots, dead at 47

originally by: Detroit Free Press
published: 17 June 2012

Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation’s history, has died, his publicist said today. King was 47. His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by Suzanne Wickham of Harper Collins, who published King’s 2012 book ‘The Riot Within .My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption.’

The 1992 riots, set off by the acquittals of the officers, lasted three days and left 55 people dead, more than 2,000 injured and swaths of Los Angeles on fire. At the height of the violence, King pleaded on television: “Can we all get along?”