A police officer told a public investigation into Sheku Bayo’s death in police custody that he appeared to be in a “state of rage or zombies” when officers tried to detain him.
PC Craig Walker said Mr Bayo approached him with a “thousand-yard look” and did not respond to the irritating PAVA spray.
Giving evidence in the second week of the investigation, PC Walker said the race played no role in assessing the risk of the situation.
Mr Bayo, 31, died after being detained by police in Kirkaldi on the morning of 3 May 2015. Officers responded to reports of a black man carrying a knife and hitting cars on the street.
PC Walker told how he and his colleague, PC Paton, found Mr. Bayoh, but he ignored them when they arrived.
He said, “We went out in front of him, asked him to stay where he was, to see your hands, etc. – but he kept walking and he didn’t really commit to the fact that we were there.”
He said PC Paton had deployed CS spray on Mr Bayoh, but the officer “deviated” after the spray “came back on him”.
At that moment, PC Walker shouted, “Stay there, drop your weapon,” and said that this made Mr. Bayo turn around and start walking toward him. The official told the investigation that he used the irritating PAVA spray, but it did not have the expected effect.
He said: “I got good eye and face contact. There didn’t seem to be any reaction, and then he just wiped off the spray on his face and just wiped it off.
In a written statement to the investigation, PC Walker said he had formed the opinion that Mr Bayoh was “physically capable of causing serious injury to someone and was apparently in some form of rage or zombie condition”.
In oral testimony, he explained: “It would be when you work so hard, so angry that you lose control of your surroundings. Someone who is so angry, this one angry that he has lost his senses.
“He wasn’t focusing on me, he was looking through me, he was quite impressive, his gaze was intense.”
PC Walker said race was not a factor in his risk assessment following calls from members of the public who gave descriptions of a man on the street carrying a knife and hitting vehicles.
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In a statement made before the hearing and presented during the investigation, he said: “The only factors taken into account in the risk assessment are the words big, muscular and carrying a knife. Race does not play a role in my risk assessment.
PC Walker told the investigation that when he first encountered Mr Bayoh, he had not acted aggressively at this stage and the police officer had not seen a knife.
He was asked by Angela Graham QC: “What would stop you from parking a little further at this stage and watching things for a few seconds, 10 seconds or a few minutes?”
The official replied: “The danger to the public that has passed. Although there is no one at the time we arrive, there are a number of houses on one side, there are passing vehicles.
“Just because he wasn’t doing anything there, I don’t think it would be too good for the police if we just parked and watched him and someone came out of their house and he attacked this man while we were parked and we watched it happen.
“It’s much wiser to take advantage of the fact that he doesn’t seem to have the knife at the moment, to get close to him, to try to communicate with him and keep him.
PC Walker is due to continue testifying in a public inquiry led by Lord Brackdale on Friday.
He examines the circumstances that led to Mr Bayo’s death, how the police dealt with the consequences, the ensuing investigation and whether race was a factor or not.
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