Death of Sheku Bayoh

Bayoh was born in Sierra Leone.[3][7] In 1995 he fled to the United Kingdom as an unaccompanied child to escape civil war in Sierra Leone.[7] After living in London for five years, he moved to Fife, Scotland at the invitation of his sister, who had lived there since the 1990s.[7] At the time of his death, Bayoh was training to be a gas engineer.[7][8] He was a father to two sons.[9][6]

On the morning of 3 May 2015, Bayoh visited a friend's house to watch a boxing match on TV.[7][10] His friends noticed he was acting out of character, which he acknowledged before volunteering to leave the gathering.[7][10] Bayoh then went to his home, where he got a knife and went into the street with it.[6][10][7][11] Concerned neighbours called emergency services to report a black man with a knife acting erratically, and police were dispatched.[6][7][12][13] A number of Police Scotland Constables including Ashley Tomlinson, Alan Paton, Craig Walker and Nicole Short arrived at the scene where they confronted Bayoh, who was now unarmed, with shouts, pepper spray, and batons before taking him to the ground and cuffing his wrists and ankles.[3][4][7][13][14][15] Bayoh lost consciousness soon after being restrained and police were unable to resuscitate him at the scene; he was pronounced dead in hospital later that morning.[7][15][3] A post-mortem report revealed injuries to Bayoh's face, bruising across his body, a fractured rib, and the presence of the street drugs MDMA and Flakka.[16][3][17] His cause of death was recorded as 'sudden death in a man intoxicated…[drugs] whilst under restraint.[14][18]