BBC Panorama: I Can't Breathe: Black and Dead in Custody

I cannot breathe...

I think if they hadn't used excessive force

he would still be here today.

This man died after being restrained by police.

I can't breathe!

These same words were uttered two years later by George Floyd

whose death sparked outrage on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the UK, if you're black, you're more than

twice as likely as a white person to die in police custody.

Relax and you won't get hurt.

This has got to stop.

He's not alive today because of the colour of his skin.

Panorama investigates unanswered questions in two British deaths...

..and, in one, reveals new allegations of police cover-up.

What you're saying is that those accounts are false?

Yes.

This is Kevin Clarke. He suffers episodes of mental ill health.

Can I feel your hand?

Police officers have come to help him.

In a little over two hours, he will be dead.

A man has died after being restrained by police

in South East London.

Officers say they were called to Lewisham on Friday afternoon,

where they found the 35-year-old in an agitated state.

I never met anyone like Kevin.

He was a unique person.

He was everything to us.

They took away my...my diamond.

Kevin Clarke loved football.

He was athletic.

And he was close to his friends and family.

He was literally like a father figure,

he was so caring and took care of us,

anything we wanted and needed.

And he's a big, big piece of my life that's just been taken away.

Kevin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as a teenager.

At the time of his death, he'd been living in supported accommodation.

He managed himself. He did everything just normal.

It was only when he had a breakdown,

then you just noticed a change in his demeanour.

More than two years after Kevin's death, an inquest began in London.

In court, his family watched his

final hours play out in real time.

I'm a police officer.

We've had a call from where you're living at the moment.

The inquest heard Kevin's support team called police,

fearing he was beginning to relapse.

Is there any reason that you're standing out in the street?

The officer decided he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else.

I'm not going to stop you from chillin' on the street.

Not long after Kevin's last seen at his supported accommodation,

he finds his way to this street here.

By this time, he's disorientated.

He's in the full grip of a psychotic episode.

And it's through the gaps between these houses

that he finds his way into the school playing fields.

I saw him walking...

Marco Piccioni saw what happened next from his garden.

I can clearly remember...

This is probably the thing I remember the best,

is that he was in a bad state,

you know, someone needing help.

Did he appear violent or aggressive or anything like that?

Not at all. He's just someone that is really mentally

in a big crisis, I guess.

Yeah. That was obvious.

All right, mate, just down there. Just through there.

By the time police arrive, Kevin is clearly in trouble.

You all right, mate? Hello.

Drunk, I think. All right. Stay there, mate.

You all right? Yeah.

OK. Take a breath, take a breath, just stay there.

Realising he's having a mental health episode,

they call an ambulance.

The whole incident is being captured on multiple cameras

worn by the attending officers.

Panorama asked a leading expert in the use of restraint

and police tactics to analyse the footage.

Here, Kevin takes an officer's hand.

She told the inquest jury she thought

he had demonstrated "extraordinary strength" and had broken her hand.

Roll over a minute, mate.

She's going to look at your bus pass, all right?

It's hurting. You're hurting my hand. Easy, easy.

To suggest, from what we've just seen there that he was hurting

the officer's hand, is frankly nonsense.

What does it look like he's doing?

It looks like he's reaching out for help. And as soon as she says

that "you're hurting my hand,"

he takes his hand away.

Professor Leslie Thomas QC

represented Kevin Clarke's family at the inquest.

He specialises in cases like these.

He wasn't a threat to anybody. And actually, when you watch the bodycam

footage very carefully, you see

that one of the officers actually

puts her hand on her Taser.

As if she's ready to use it.

And when you stop and ask yourself

what was the behaviour that Kevin had done to merit

immediately being surrounded, all the officers stepping in,

is he just got to his knees.

Easy, mate. Easy. Nice and easy, mate.

We're just here to help.

This is when the fateful decision to restrain Kevin is taken.

It's as if without talking about it, they all have the same mind-set,

that this is somebody who needs to be restrained.

Easy. Easy, mate. Nice and easy.

Nice and easy. That's it. And that one. That's it.

That's it. That's it.

And what's that mind-set based on?

Fear, perhaps? Fear of what they see.

What do they see? A big, black man.

Fear.

The man is now in handcuffs. He's become quite aggressive to us.

They need to hurry up.

Has anyone got any leg restraints they can bring down, please?

The officer has told control that

he's become quite aggressive towards them. Well, it's simply not true.

He's not being aggressive at all,

and he's not capable of being aggressive towards them.

The suggestion of leg restraints, what on earth for?

There is absolutely no justification at all for restraining him.

And what they've done is just totally wrong and dangerous.

So why did it happen?

Bas Javid is a commander in the Metropolitan Police.

Which element of Kevin's behaviour made it appropriate to restrain him?

It's a fair question.

So I think that there was evidence and, you know,

the circumstances at the time,

that he was in a position that

he may well have harmed himself or other people.

That was what the officers' findings were.

Now, I'm not saying that's right or wrong.

What I'm asking you about, specifically, is

whether you think the restraint in those circumstances was appropriate?

Yes or no? Look, clearly it wasn't.

Clearly the restraint wasn't appropriate, no.

Black people are three times more likely to have force used on them

than their white counterparts.

How do you explain that?

I explain it by accepting that

that's disproportionate,

that it's not right. We need to understand the reasons why.

Is there racial discrimination and bias and prejudice

within an organisation?

Absolutely. That's a reflection of society. In yours?

Yes, there is. Yeah.

Four minutes into the restraint,

and up to six officers are holding Kevin on the ground.

I can't... Listen, listen.

And what he says is, "I can't breathe. You're killing me."

Several times.

Breathe. Breathe. I cannot breathe.

I cannot breathe... Deep breaths.

Eight minutes later,

police and paramedics discuss how to get Kevin to the ambulance.

They seem to lack urgency

and fail to carry out a proper assessment of him.

15 minutes into the restraint,

they decide to try and walk him to the ambulance.

Then, an officer draws Kevin's hood over his head

and uses it to pull him along.

Come on, walk for us, Kevin.

What was your reaction to that?

I was disgusted.

They were meant to be checking his breathing and his vital signs -

how can you do that with the hood over the head

if he is meant to be...

..the patient?

So, not as a lawyer, not as a QC, not as a professor,

just as another human being, I was disgusted.

He is forced to walk,

though he's still bound at the knees.

MAN GROANS

He's gone down, he's gone down. Hold on.

Check his pulse. Sit him up, sit him up.

Doubled over, still cuffed behind his back, his breathing is impaired.

He's been restrained for 19 minutes.

Now, barely conscious, he is in fact dying.

A year before Kevin died,

a review of deaths in custody in England and Wales

highlighted concerns around police stereotyping black people

because of their perceived size or strength.

The evidence that we had was that many officers

don't have very much to do with black communities,

other than when they're policing.

Many of them described them, in their statements

that they prepared afterwards,

as being this huge man with superhuman strength, etc,

and I don't challenge that that's what they believed at that time,

or that was their perception,

but the reality was very, very different.

They were just black? Yes.

If you're black in the UK,

you're more than twice as likely as a white person

to die in or following police custody.

Kevin Clarke is one of at least 27 black men

to die in such circumstances in the past 15 years.

Relax and you won't get hurt.