‘How do I heal?’: the long wait for justice after a

The true number of black people who have died after contact with the police has been hidden, while their families are faced with delays and denials

In the early hours of Sunday 3 July 2022, two men, 300 miles apart, died after contact with police. One man was in Cornwall, and the other in Nottingham. Both men were unarmed, and had not harmed anyone. Both men were terrified; both had struggled with drug addiction; both were in the midst of a psychotic episode. Both were black. Both had called the police to help them.

Godrick Osei was 35 and a father of two. At around 2am, he placed two calls to his sister from his partner’s flat in Truro. He was in a paranoid state, and claimed men with guns were in the flat. Then he jumped out of the window, taking his partner’s phone. He rang the police himself, and said he was being chased by armed attackers.