from Birmingham Post
10th November 2009

A Birmingham man called out “mummy” as heavy-handed police officers carried him away to a prison cell where he later died, an inquest was told.

Witness Abid Ali said Michael Powell struggled with six officers as they arrested him for smashing windows and damaging his mother’s property. Neighbour Mr Ali, speaking at the inquest at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall said that moments earlier he saw an officer with both of his knees on Mr Powell.

“I would like to say clearly there was an officer with a bald head I remember him with both his knees on Michael. He was using his hands to restrain him. I clearly remember that image in my head,” he said.

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from The Telegraph
4th November 2009

The cousin of a renowned poet died after police ran him over, sprayed him with CS gas then beat him, before refusing to call an ambulance, an inquest heard.

Michael Powell was attacked outside his home because officers said they feared he had a gun. After hitting him with a police car, spraying him and beating him with batons, they decided not to call an ambulance, instead bundling him into the back of a police van and taking him to a station.

As they carried him inside the building, they noticed he had died.

Yesterday his mother said she had begged officers to call an ambulance and said: “I don’t think they would have treated Michael that way if he had been white or I had been white”.

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from Birmingham Post
6th November 2009

The sister of a Birmingham man who died in police custody has spoken about her brother’s health and the behaviour of police officers the night he was arrested.

Sharon Powell said her 38-year-old brother Michael was a “loving, family man” and despite a history of mental illness he was “fit, well and healthy”. Michael Powell died in a prison cell at Thornhill Road Police Station in Handsworth after being arrested for smashing windows and damaging his mother’s home in Wilton Road, Lozells, in September 2003.

His family have maintained that the police’s heavy handed behaviour during the arrest was racially motivated and he would have been treated differently had he been white.

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