By Victoria Mckeown-
A police officer who unlawfully killed Dalian Atkinson by tasering him to the ground and kicking him in the head has been jailed for eight years.
PC Benjamin Monk, 43, was imprisoned for discharging his Taser three times, and kicked him twice in the head, leaving bootlace prints on his forehead, his trial heard. Monk is the first British officer to face a murder charge after a person had been tasered by police.
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The excessive force used by the officers was unnecessary, and typical of the occasional police brutality in the British police force. Handling difficult members of the public requires sound judgement and proportionate action, not the thuggish response by the violent officer.
Atkinson- a former -Aston Villa striker died after the 2016 stand-off outside his father’s home in Telford, Shropshire.
Jurors cleared Monk of an alternative charge of murder on 23 June.
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He will serve two-thirds of his sentence before being entitled to release on license.
Speaking after the conviction, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was the first time in over 30 years that a British police officer had been convicted of manslaughter in the course of their duties.
Although there have been 10 murder or manslaughter charges brought against police officers since 1990, those accused have all either been acquitted or the case has collapsed.
Judge Melbourne Inman QC indicated to the officer- now a criminal convict- that he had the intention to use excessive force and cause serious harmMonk it “should have been obvious to you” the force used was excessive.
Killed : Dalian Atkinson Image: Cps
He said kicking and tasering Mr Atkinson while he lay on the street was “beyond reasonable” and told him: “You have let yourself and the force down”.
“Although they were difficult, you failed to act appropriately in the circumstances as they developed,” Judge Inman said.
“The obvious aggravating factor is that you committed this offence while on duty as a police officer.”
Legal representatives for the Atkinson family read a statement alongside Kenroy Atkinson, brother of Dalian, and his wife Julie (R), outside Birmingham Crown Court.
Atkinson’s family welcomed the sentence and paid tribute to other “bereaved families of black men who have died at the hands of the police”
Callous
Mr Atkinson’s family reacted to the sentence by saying Monk had abused his position of trust in the “callous attack”.
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, they called for change in the way Black people, particularly men, are treated by police and the criminal justice system.” As his fellow footballers take the knee, we hope that they will honour the memory of Dalian,” they said.
IOPC regional director Derrick Campbell said the police would need to “work hard to restore and maintain” the confidence of Black communities following the sentence. The police have a poor historical record with dealing with black people, one which becomes more notable with minority men who may be behaving badly.
White males in the Uk also sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of excessive police force, but the extremity of police brutality is believed to be worse with black men. The statistics in relation to excessive force towards black men couldn’t be more telling.
Police are five times more likely to use force against Black people than White people.
They used force tactics 614,660 times in 2018/19 where the ethnicity of the person is known – including tactics such as handcuffing, other restraint, use of batons, irritant sprays, tasers and firearms.
Of those, 447,337 tactics were used against White people, and 94,222 against Black people – a rate of 90 times per 10,000 White people and 450 times per 10,000 Black people.
Police were 11 times more likely to use firearms (including cases where they were not fired), eight times more likely to use batons and six times more likely to use handcuffs on Black people.
Custody Deaths
Black people are also nearly twice as likely as White people to die either during or immediately after having contact with police.
Between 2004/05 and 2018/19, 2,563 people across England and Wales died during or after contact with police.
These include deaths from road traffic incidents involving police vehicles, police shootings, and apparent suicides following police custody.
They also include deaths in or immediately following police custody – for example where injuries that contributed to the death were sustained during the period of detention, as in the case of George Floyd.
Deaths following other contact with police that did not involve an arrest are also included, where they are under independent investigation – which only happens after the most serious incidents.
The 2,563 deaths included 2,160 White people and 150 Black people – 43 for every million White people and 72 for every million Black people.
The only type of death where Black people were less likely than White people to have been a victim were apparent suicides following police custody.
In particular, Black people are more than six times as likely to die from police shootings.
There were 0.5 White people shot dead by police for every million of the population (26 in total), compared to 3.3 Black people shot dead by police for every million (seven).
Mental Breakdown-
During the six-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors heard Monk and his co-accused colleague, PC Mary-Ellen Bettley-Smith had been called to Meadow Close at about 01:30 BST on 15 August.
Mr Atkinson was having a mental breakdown and had been shouting outside his father’s house claiming to be the Messiah.
Judge Inman said he had “suddenly lost touch with reality” and was “unrecognizable to those who knew him at the scene”.
When the officers, who were in a relationship at the time, arrived, they claimed to be “terrified” of the 48-year-old sportsman, who had smashed a pane of glass in his father’s door.
Monk deployed his Taser three times. Twice he was unsuccessful but on the third occasion, jurors found he acted unlawfully, using excessive force by overriding the trigger to Taser Mr Atkinson for 33 seconds.
While Mr Atkinson lay on the ground, the officer kicked him twice to the head with enough force to leave imprints of his bootlaces, while PC Bettley-Smith struck him with her baton.
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