written by John Urquhart / issued by the South Wales Assembly

The police cordon on Wilson Road early on the evening of May 22nd, 2023.

Two years ago today in the early evening a police van followed two boys on their electric bike at an unsafe speed along several roads towards their home, resulting in the deaths of Kyrees Sullivan (16) and Harvey Evans (15) on Snowden Road. Police arrived swiftly on the scene - because they had been following the boys and had turned off an adjacent street. What followed was unnecessarily provocative and violent. Police divided the community around Snowden Road, preventing people from accessing houses and setting up a cordon.

They refused family members and friends access to the boys in the street, even though they had died mere yards from home. Understandably, this made people angry. But rather than deescalating the situation, the police escalated and brought in riot vans and dogs. To make matters worse although the police had complete control of the surrounding roads necessary to enter and exit the area, they did not move the bodies of the boys from the street until around 5am the following morning - which undoubtedly contributed to the tension and outrage. Despite being warned by numerous residents that they were escalating the situation, these choices by the police created the situation which led to the Ely Uprising on this day on Wilson Road in 2023.

Today we have in mind the Sullivan and the Evans families; those subjected to unnecessary judicial violence in response to their understandable grief at the loss of friends; and those who have been subjected to revenge policing ever since the Uprising, too.

Our solidarity is with you, and we will continue to work hard to try to find ways forward to heal some of the harms arising from that difficult, traumatic, painful day of the 22nd of May 2023. We also express our discontent that the officers responsible for the deaths of two boys in this community - and whose actions consequently caused the criminalisation of children for nothing more than grief at the loss of their friends on their own road - have not faced justice. But we were not surprised this came to pass.

Perhaps tomorrow will bring justice; especially if we have the say we want in what tomorrow brings.