The chainsaw’s whirring teeth made short work of the porch door, and armed officers wearing balaclavas surged into the house in Coventry’s northern suburbs. A second wave of police entered by smashing through the ground floor windows, Navy Seals style. The evening raid was “like World War III,” an eyewitness told reporters in the aftermath.
As officers later admitted in court, they didn’t announce themselves as law enforcement before breaking into the property. Inside were three startled men, one of whom would later report seeing “a big flash, like a flash grenade in films.” It’s no wonder that moments after the door came in, one of these men—former British Army soldier Sean Fitzgerald—fled through the back of the terraced house on Burnaby Road in Holbrooks.
As soon as Sean appeared from behind a curtain—wearing a gray tracksuit, a dark gilet, and a cap—one of two armed officers waiting in the darkness of the back garden shot the unarmed 31-year-old in the chest, as shown by bodycam footage. When firing the shot, the officer shouted something that sounded like, “Armed police, get on the ground!”
Sean had been outside for less than a second, with his arms in a natural position, before he was dying on the ground in the cold winter night. As the policeman who came to be known as ‘Officer K’ began efforts to stem the bleeding and resuscitate him, Sean said simply, “You shot me.”
Sean was then handcuffed despite being incapacitated and on the brink of death, before passing away not long after.
“I used to feed and bathe him,” recalls Noel O’Brien, one of four brothers who survive Sean. “The first steps he ever walked were towards me. At the age of three, he was singing along to Happy Mondays songs with me. I didn’t realize at the time how strong our bond was. He was always a happy child.”
This Wednesday saw an end to the six-week inquest into Sean Fitzgerald’s death, with the jury ruling controversially, and by majority verdict, that his killing was lawful. Their deliberations lasted more than five days.
Maybe the key detail was a claim made by Officer K in court, who said he’d mistaken Sean’s small Nokia phone for a gun. “I honestly believed that I was about to be shot,” he said. The police’s lawyers also argued that Sean was believed to be a member of an organized crime group engaged in drug offenses and violence, with access to firearms. Yet while the two survivors of the raid were eventually convicted for cultivating cannabis, the police discovered no weapons or class-A drugs in the house, just a modest weed grow operation.
All this took place on the night of January 9, 2019. Six agonizing years later, Sean’s family and friends finally have the results of an inquest that they hoped would give them justice but will only have deepened their pain and grief.
“Every time I think about it, I get angry. It’s a complete and utter whitewash.”—Ian Percival, Sean’s uncle
“Firearms officers should only shoot if they believe that they, their colleagues, or the public are in immediate danger,” says Dr. David Baker, a criminologist at the University of Liverpool who studies police killings. “How can you make an assessment in less than one second?” Long before the inquest began, however, the authorities refused to prosecute Officer K, even with there seemingly being a plausible case for the criminal offense of murder or manslaughter.
Despite the verdict, the jury identified serious failures in the police operation, finding that officers should have announced their presence before chainsawing the door, and that Officer K should have declared himself as armed police prior to shooting Sean.
Liam Fitzgerald, another of Sean’s brothers, says that his family “strongly believe” the evidence indicates his death amounted to an unlawful killing. “It has been incredibly hard and upsetting to hear of Sean’s last moments and listen to the accounts of the officers involved, especially Officer K,” he explains. “We completely disagree with his evidence and do not believe he genuinely believed Sean was a threat. Sean was not a threat, and it is hard to accept that Officer K’s mistake that cost Sean his life can be justified.”
During the inquest, Liam told the court that Sean “wasn’t a saint” but nor was he a career criminal. “He had a heart of gold, and his big smile gave that away. Life had thrown a lot at him, but he always looked for the positives.”
A fan of Manchester United and off-road motorbiking, Sean’s mother died when he was 10, and his father passed away a decade later. He was a working-class lad who was easily distracted at school and spent much of his upbringing living above the family’s pub not far from where he died, until he left aged 15. He moved into a YMCA for a while, getting into a few minor run-ins with the police, before joining his brother Noel in London, and at 21 he joined the Army. There, he found a degree of discipline and camaraderie that was useful for him, competing in regimental boxing tournaments and being named best recruit during training. Soon, though, it all came crashing down. Sean was discharged after taking cocaine on a night out, apparently with more senior officers.
He applied to join the French Foreign Legion but they discovered a small defect in his heart, so he resettled in London and found work as an estate agent. Together, Sean and Noel soaked up the capital’s nightlife. “He had everything going for him,” says Noel, who worked in marketing. “His life was going in a great direction with his girlfriend and all of the friends he made in London. If we were out raving I would always find him after a few hours with a new group of friends. He got on with everyone.”
But family members acknowledged that Sean started to lose the thread after Noel moved away to Cambodia, flitting between jobs in retail and at bookmakers. A long-term relationship collapsed as Sean struggled to make ends meet, and he found himself at what was “undoubtedly [his] lowest point,” Liam told the inquest: down on his luck in Essex, cycling to and from work at a garden center, enduring a drawn-out dark night of the soul. “There were many tears and upset phone calls; he was finding life tough, he didn’t have much money,” Liam said at Coventry Coroner’s Court. “He was apart from friends and family. Loneliness had taken hold; his fear of being alone was a reality.”
In the summer of 2017, this sadness led him back home to Coventry, where Sean knew he’d find the familiarity and warmth of childhood friends. “Sean had so much heartache in his life from losing his mum and then his dad but you would never have known because he was just such a happy person,” says Sharlene Whetstone, who Sean connected with romantically not long after his return to the Midlands.
“It’s like your whole world turns black and stops.”—Sharlene Whetstone, Sean’s girlfriend
Whetstone spoke to Sean just an hour before the shooting. She remembers waiting for him to come home: “Getting the news was a feeling I will never be able to process. I was worrying because his phone was ringing out and it was out of character for him not to pick up.” Then she received the dreaded call. “It’s like your whole world turns black and stops,” she explains. “Disbelief, confusion, and unbearable pain.” For Ian Percival, Sean’s uncle, the drawn-out experience with the authorities for years has been just as bad: “Could you imagine someone being taken from you in circumstances you know nothing about, and if you ask a question they say, ‘Well, we’re having an inquiry, so you can’t ask any questions?’ Every time I think about it, I get angry. It’s a complete and utter whitewash. It’s the helplessness that’s really fucked us.”
Their frustration has only been compounded by the arcane workings of the British state during what the Fitzgerald family has described as a “nightmare” of grief and unanswered questions. There has been a near-inexplicable series of delays. The police watchdog struggled to find an appropriate independent expert to help investigate the incident, while the process may also have been disrupted by the resignation of the police watchdog chief after he was accused of rape, though he was later cleared. The Fitzgeralds have complained that the authorities have shown “no compassion or respect.”
“We’ve witnessed legal games that appear to be for the purpose of protecting certain people and organizations rather than finding the truth and holding those in the wrong accountable,” Liam said in 2023. Whetstone describes the lack of closure as “soul destroying,” adding that to lose someone “in such a traumatic and horrific way” with no explanation “really alters you as a person.” Neither she, nor any of Sean’s nearest and dearest, “will ever be the same again.”
Sean’s life had always been fairly tumultuous; this is often the case for those who, as he was, are the life and soul of the party. But despite the authorities attempting to cast Sean as a member of an organized crime group, no evidence has emerged that he was involved in anything more serious than potentially selling cannabis. “There were probably about 30 plants growing in there,” says one of Sean’s friends, who was present during the raid at the house, and had put on the 2016 sequel of Independence Day for everyone to watch. “Hand on heart, there were not 140 plants in that house.” (The police claim it held 140 plants, valued at more than £100,000.)
After hearing the gunshot and the aftermath, Sean’s friend knew that he’d been shot, but hoped he was alive since officers were, at one point, “laughing their heads off.” He claimed more could have been done following the shooting to assist the handcuffed Sean. “I said to the officer, ‘Let me help my mate, let me help my mate,’” he recalled.
The alleged laughter from two police officers gave him the impression that Sean had somehow survived. “I’ll never, ever forget that I’ve seen two officers laughing,” he adds, “and obviously I thought, ‘Yes, he’s alive.’ Until I got to the station and they said, ‘No, he’s dead.’”
A West Midlands police spokesperson said: “Having viewed the body-worn video of the officers, it is clear that fast aid was given to Mr Fitzgerald within seconds, this was commended by the paramedics who attended and the doctor who subsequently saw Mr Fitzgerald. The suggestion that the officers were laughing is completely wrong and incredibly offensive, they carried out urgent medical care with the utmost professionalism.”
On the inquest’s lawful killing ruling, West Midlands police Assistant Chief Constable Damian Barratt said the force acknowledged criticism from the jury that identified failures in the police operation, which also included questions over the level of intelligence and the lack of surveillance of the property. “We note the points raised within the findings and will ensure that these are fully considered in order to identify any learning in future operations,” he said.
Meanwhile, IOPC director Derrick Campbell said following the inquest ruling that the officer who fired the fatal shot only had “a case to answer for gross misconduct,” saying that a December 2023 investigation by a police watchdog failed to surface “sufficient evidence” for a more serious charge. Officer K had only “breached the police professional standards regarding his use of force,” Campbell said.
It is uncommon for police in the UK to shoot and kill someone. Since Mark Duggan’s death sparked riots in 2011, there have been 31 killings, a figure which includes six terrorists. It’s rarer still for the person killed to be fleeing a raid on a cannabis farm. Medical cannabis was legalized in the UK in 2018.
“What the jury identified in this inquest around incompetent and dangerous operational failures, is all-too familiar when it comes to police operations resulting in unarmed men being killed,” says Selen Cavcav, a senior caseworker at the charity INQUEST, which has supported the Fitzgerald family. “There needs to be concrete changes made to armed policing to preserve life.”
Now, those mourning Sean must reckon with an array of unfulfilled futures. Whetstone, who has been helping to run the campaign group Justice4Seany, says her late boyfriend was planning to set up his own roadside recovery business while saving for a deposit on a house. “He really lived life to the fullest and was in a place where he was so happy and content,” she remembers. “We’d see homeless people and he would give them money and stand and talk to them. He had the biggest heart and an even bigger smile.”
Follow Mattha Busby on Instagram @matthamundo
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