Category Archives: Deaths in custody

Tanya Day’s arresting officer tells inquest he didn’t think she needed medical attention

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Constable dismisses suggestion that according to police checklist he should have taken her to hospital

The police officer who arrested Tanya Day at Castlemaine train station said he did not think she needed medical attention despite police guidelines stating that intoxicated people who cannot provide intelligible answers should be sent to hospital.

Senior Constable Stephen Thomas told an inquest into the 55-year-old Yorta Yorta woman’s death in custody that he also did not tell her she had been placed under arrest, saying it was “the most low-key arrest I have ever done”.

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Death in custody: police failed to see Indigenous man no longer needed restraining, coroner says

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Shaun Coolwell died in hospital after being handcuffed and injected with the sedative midazolam

Queensland police and paramedics dealing with an Indigenous man during a violent, drug-induced episode failed to recognise the sudden deterioration of his health, a coroner has said.

Shaun Charles Coolwell died in hospital after being sedated and restrained in his sister’s Logan home, south of Brisbane, in October 2015.

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Sean Rigg: five officers cleared of misconduct over death in custody

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Hearing ruled claims against Met officers over musician’s death in 2008 were unproven

Five Metropolitan police officers have been cleared of misconduct over the arrest and detention of the musician Sean Rigg, who died in custody in 2008.

PCs Andrew Birks, Richard Glasson, Matthew Forward, Mark Harratt and Sgt Paul White all faced disciplinary proceedings more than a decade after the 40-year-old died.

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