Posted on 03/29/2006 3:33:46 PM PST by iPod Shuffle
March 28, 2006
Police 'monkey noises' heard as ex-soldier died
By Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent
POLICE officers who stood by while a former paratrooper choked to death on the floor of their station brought “disgrace” to their profession and committed “the most serious neglect of duty”, a watchdog concluded yesterday.
In a critical 400-page report, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said that the treatment given to Chris Alder, a 37-year-old black Falklands war veteran, by Humberside officers amounted to “unwitting racism”.
Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC and author of the report, said: “I cannot say for certain that Mr Alder would have been treated more appropriately had he been white — but I do believe the fact he was black stacked the odds more heavily against him.”
Last night, as Tim Hollis, the Chief Constable of Humberside, apologised for Mr Alder’s treatment, the dead man’s sister Janet called for a public inquiry. She described her brother’s treatment as the “most severe type of inhumane negligence” and said that the officers involved had never given their version of events.
The five officers who dealt with Mr Alder have already been cleared in a criminal trial and an internal police disciplinary process. Four of the five have retired on medical grounds. They said that they were “deeply disappointed” by the IPCC report and “strongly dispute” the findings.
Mr Alder was arrested on April 1, 1998. He was knocked to the ground during a fight outside a nightclub and taken to hospital, but he became angry, difficult and uncooperative and was arrested for a breach of the peace.
At Queen’s Gardens police station in Hull he was found unconscious in the police van. He was carried to the custody suite, where he lay dying with his trousers around his ankles for 11 minutes as the entire scene was captured by CCTV. The report said: “The tapes record the desultory conversation of the officers and Mr Alder’s guttural last breaths.”
Forensic science techniques later found that there were “monkey noises” being made at the beginning of the officers’ shift and after Mr Alder’s death. In his report Mr Hardwick said: “If the racist connotations of these noises was not obvious to the officers, they should have been.”
The report identified four officers as the most negligent and named them as PC Matthew Barr, PC Neil Blakey, PC Nigel Dawson and Sergeant John Dunn. A fifth officer, Acting Sergeant Mark Ellerington, was also involved but to a lesser extent than the others.
Mr Hardwick said: “I do not want there to be any doubt about my feelings. I believe they were guilty of the most serious neglect of duty. In the case of Sergeant Dunn, the duty placed upon him as a custody officer was greater than that of his colleagues.”
In his report Mr Hardwick noted that some senior officers later claimed that inaction or action similar to that displayed by the four officers would and could happen in other police stations up and down the country. Mr Hardwick said he did not believe that to be the case.
The report also criticised Humberside Police and West Yorkshire Police over their investigations after Mr Alder’s death saying that evidence was destroyed.
A separate report by the Healthcare Commission published yesterday called on the NHS and the police to introduce national safeguards for the handling of difficult patients between police and medical staff.
It said that patients should not be handed over to police until their medical needs had been dealt with.
I remember the Europeans clucking about Hurricane Katrina, saying that it exposed America's basic racism.
“unwitting racism”.
UNWITTING??!
Exactly.
The cops retired on medical disability. That happens in the USA as well.
My best friend from Africa loves America more than England. She didn't like it for the way she was treated just for being black. This is a sick story.
The Falklands war was in 1982, 24 years ago. Something is wrong, perhaps just his age is given incorrectly?
The incident occurred in 1998...
This incident occurred in 1998. Boy, the wheels of justice turn slowly over there.
It took them EIGHT years to get out a report??
No, it's ok for Europeans to be racist.. it doesn't count.. it only matters that Americans are all racist bastards.... /sarc
It takes a loooooooooooooooooooong time to generate a 400 page report.
I wouldn't be treated too kindly in Africa(or west Montgomery). But then again I wouldn't go where I am not wanted.
What garbage.
britain isn't really europe. in some ways, it's more like america in the 1950's. at least the magistrate criticized the police on this.
it will take them a few decades to catch up to the US on racial issues.
the more i read about other countries, the more i realize how much america has advanced in the last 40 years.
well, america in the 50's with the inability to defend oneself in any way whatsoever...
I suppose. Sometimes you have to go where you aren't wanted in order to get ahead in life. A person should live their live according to the dictates of other people.
That should say SHOULD NOT... I go wherever I want to but then this is America and you can do that last time I checked.
that's one of the reasons i put in my qualification of "in some ways".
i think self-defense is a crime over there.
What a terrible way for a paratrooper to be killed, by his own weak police. AIRBORNE
It's a real shame too, because for natural beauty, it's hard to beat the UK..
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