As a senior police officer faces now disciplinary investigations and Wales emergences out of lockdown, the issues of police racism and the deaths in police custody in January of this year of two Black men, Mohamud Hassan and Mouayed Bashir will see an escalation of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in
Mohamud Hassan died on Saturday, January 9th 2021, after being violently arrested by Cardiff Bay Police officers at his home in Cardiff, Wales. He was detained overnight and released the following day without charge. His case has become a national and international story as the details of his arrest have been made public.
Today I can reveal that in addition to five officers already being investigated, a sixth South Wales Police officer has now been served a regulation 17 disciplinary notice in connection to Mohamud's detention at Cardiff Bay police station. This notice relates to apparent failures to properly risk assess Mohamud whilst in custody. Mohamud repeatedly complained of feeling very ill, and yet no one lifted a finger to help him as his condition deteriorated.
As indicated by these investigations, we now know that there was a catalogue of abuse and failures that ran through the entire chain of command from arrest to detention and release.
It's worth recalling that South Wales police initially denied any wrongdoing by their officers in relation to Mohamud's arrest and subsequent detention.
The press release reads.
"...we did not do this (referred case to IOPC) because we thought that police officers had done anything wrong, but because it was the right thing to do, to give an independent view on the decisions that we made and the actions that we took."
The Hassan family continues to fight for justice and ask's for your support in demanding;
1.The IOPC releases the police bodycam videos of Mohamud arrest to the family and
2.That South Wales Police Jeremy Vaughan resigns or is sacked for having issued this press release which bears no relation to the truth. His position, we say, is untenable, and we are calling on the candidates currently campaigning for the South Wales Police Crime Commissioner to back these demands and commit to a full independent inquiry.
All the officers involved face serious misconduct charges and are suspended pending the outcomes of the IOPC investigations.
The IOPC, in refusing to release the police bodycam videos, was party to the initial conspiracy to deny any wrongdoing. It's now clear they wanted to maintain the initial fiction expressed in the South Wales Police press release that there was no case to answer as suggested by Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan. Both were involved in manipulating the media and proactively sought to play down and undermine the families concern that the police had battered Mohamud.
The IOPC will issue this statement.
"We have now served a notice at the level of misconduct on a custody sergeant who was on duty during Mr Hassan's detention. This notice relates to the quality of the risk assessment undertaken on Mr Hassan when in custody. Notices have previously been served on four other police officers and one custody detention officer as part of our ongoing investigation. One of the notices for a police officer is at gross misconduct level, the remainder are at misconduct level. Service of a misconduct notice does not necessarily mean an officer has committed any wrongdoing. It is to notify an officer that their conduct is being investigated."
There will be a Twitter storm for Mohamud on May 9th 2021 and an international online public meeting on 9th of June 2021
Follow Justice 4 Mohamud Hassan on Twitter, Insta and Facebook for more details.
