all credits: Paul Suart The Free Library
9th December 2009

A Birmingham father-of-three who died in police custody was suspected of carrying a gun because of the area he was in, police conceded.

Officers were called to Wilton Street in Lozells where Michael Powell, 38, had smashed windows at his mother’s home. Lozells was, at the time of the disturbance central to a police operation to tackle gun crime within the black community following a spate of shootings in the area.

When the first police car arrived Mr Powell, who suffered with mental health problems, ran at it with an unknown weapon and smashed a rear window. He was later restrained by a passerby and several officers, bundled into a van and taken to Thornhill Road police station where minutes later he died.

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from Socialist Worker Online
9th December 2009

Police officers have been giving evidence to the inquest into the death of Mikey Powell who died in police custody in 2003.

Sergeant Russell Tringham, who was a police constable stationed at Walsall Road Police Station at the time, told the inquest that he had been attending to another call when he received an emergency radio message to go to Wilton Road.

When he arrived, he saw Mikey on his back, handcuffed with his arms above him, resisting arrest by three police officers. Sergeant Tringham did not assist with the restraint and went looking for missing police equipment for a couple of minutes.

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from Birmingham Post
3rd December 2009

A policeman has told and inquest how he tried to revive a Birmingham man who died in custody.

Sergeant Russell Tringham gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics arrived when he realised that Michael Powell was no longer breathing. The father-of-three had been arrested following a violent struggle outside his mother’s address in Wilton Road, Lozells, in September 2003, and died shortly after he was taken to Thornhill Road Police Station.

Sgt Tringham, who was a police constable stationed at Walsall Road Police Station at the time, told an inquest that he had been attending to another call when he received an emergency radio message to go to Wilton Road.

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