East London protests over death of Edir Frederico Da Costa during traffic stop in June turn violent, leading to five arrests

Fourteen police officers were injured and five people were arrested as a day of peaceful protests over the death of a man against whom police are said to have used force and CS spray ended in clashes on Sunday night.

Police condemned the violence that occurred after dark in east London and left four officers needing hospital treatment. Earlier in the day, demonstrators had gathered to demand justice over the death of Edir Frederico Da Costa.

“Behaviour such as that seen overnight will not be tolerated and an investigation will begin to identify those individuals who targeted our officers,” said the Newham borough commander, Ian Larnder.

“Whilst we will always support the right for lawful protest, the events of last night cannot be justified. Not only were our officers confronted by violence, with several of them being injured, but local residents were severely disrupted.”



Demonstrators were angry at the treatment of Da Costa, a 25-year-old mechanic and father to a toddler, who was one of three people in a car Met police officers stopped on 15 June.

Scotland Yard initially said he became unwell and had swallowed a large quantity of drugs, but the police watchdog later said they believed officers used force and CS spray during the arrest. Da Costa, known to friends as Edson, died six days later.

His family have said they believe he suffered extensive injuries, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said a preliminary postmortem contradicted that.

Many of the protesters highlighted the allegation that Da Costa was “brutally beaten” by police and aligned his case with other high profile deaths of black people after contact with the police.

The demonstration started on Sunday afternoon at Forest Gate police station, near the scene of the arrest, and protesters marched peacefully from there to nearby Stratford, before returning to the station later in the evening, when they held a minute’s silence in Da Costa’s memory.

Later, however, police said that some members of the crowd, “many of whom had not been involved in the original protest”, threw bricks, bottles and fireworks at officers. Some small fires were also lit, though they were quickly put out.

Officers said a small section of the crowd remained until the early hours of Monday and continued to throw missiles at police.

“Fourteen officers received injuries, four of whom were taken to hospital for medical treatment. These include a male police sergeant who was knocked unconscious after an object struck his helmet, as well as officers with neck, leg and wrist injuries. All four officers have since been discharged.

“A police vehicle that was responding to a separate incident was damaged after it was targeted by protesters.” Police added that they did not believe any members of the public were injured, nor was there any significant damage to property.

The five people detained were all male. Two men aged 26 and 22 and a 16-year-old were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Two men aged 19 and 26 were arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, with the former also arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Two of the five remained in police custody on Monday. The others were released pending further investigation.