Yves Sakila’s death is being called Ireland’s ‘George Floyd moment’

Warning: This story contains graphic video depictions of violence and death.

Ebun Joseph says every time she watches the video of Yves Sakila being pinned face-down on the ground by at least five men until his body goes limp, she feels a churning sensation in her stomach.

Sakila, a 35-year-old Congolese-born man, died last Friday after he was restrained outside a department store in Dublin by security guards. Bystander video shows a man in a suit briefly pushing his knee into the back of Sakila’s neck.

“We’re talking of human life,” Joseph, Ireland’s special rapporteur on racial equality and racism, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “I’m not even speaking as special rapporteur. I’m speaking as a human being.”

The footage has evoked widespread outrage in Ireland. Hundreds of people protested outside the country’s parliament on Thursday calling for justice. Joseph was among them. 

“There was a lot of hopelessness. There was a lot of pain. There was a lot of anger. There was a lot fear — palpable fear,” she said of the mood at the protest. “A looming kind of fear, like what future do we have?”

Police have launched an investigation into Sakila’s death, while a police ombudsman investigates the officers who first arrived at the scene. The department store, Arnotts, said it is co-operating with police and conducting a review of its privately contracted security services. 

‘Down-to-earth young man’

Sakila was chased and detained on May 15 by several security guards who suspected him of shoplifting from Arnotts.

Attorney John Gerard Cullen, who represents the man’s family, said Sakila allegedly stole a bottle of perfume from the store.

Footage shows Sakila screaming in distress as he’s held down by several men, some wearing suits, for nearly five minutes. 

By the end of the video, he is motionless. He was unresponsive when police arrived and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. 

CBC has not independently verified the bystander footage. However, the newswire service Reuters has verified the location from the buildings, the pavement and the utility poles seen in the video, which matched archive imagery of the area.

The date when the video was recorded has also been verified by an official statement from Irish police.

Police say an autopsy has been completed, but they have not released the cause of death, citing operational reasons.

Cullen said Sakila’s family is frustrated at the little information they have been provided.

“We call this a ‌George Floyd moment,” said David Kaliba, a 35-year-old physics student who went to a north Dublin suburban high school with Sakila. 

Floyd, a Black Minneapolis man, was killed in May 2020 by a police officer who kneeled on his neck for several minutes during an arrest. His death fuelled ⁠the Black Lives Matter movement in the  United States and sparked protests across the country against police brutality and racism.

“I can’t believe it happened in America in 2020 and happened in Ireland in 2026,” Kaliba said.

Walter Kabangu, the director of the Congolese Chamber of Commerce in Ireland who also went to school with Sakila, described him as a “very down-to-earth young man.”

Sakila’s former classmates say he moved to Ireland from the Democratic Republic of Congo more than 20 years ago and worked in the technology industry before becoming homeless in recent years. 

Cullen said Sakila struggled with drug addiction.

‘Justice must be for all’

Police have alleged that as Sakila fled the security officers, he knocked over a man in his 80s who was hospitalized with injuries.

The Irish Mirror has identified the man as an 86-year-old retired pastor, and reports he suffered a broken hip. His wife told the newspaper that it remains unclear who knocked her husband down, but that he forgives whoever it was. 

Joseph says those who are focusing on the alleged theft and the injured man are deflecting from the issue at hand.

“It’s not about what he did. This is not the jungle,” Joseph said. “The Western world prides itself on equality and justice. And justice cannot be selective. Justice must be for all.”

Prime Minister Micheal Martin is one of several Irish lawmakers who have called for a thorough investigation into Sakila’s death.

“My deepest sympathies go out to his family, and to the wider Congolese community,” Martin said. “A lot of people are clearly very concerned about what has transpired here.”

Joseph is calling on authorities to keep the community informed as the investigation unfolds. 

She also called on the public to not let the story of Sakila’s death slide out of the news cycle and into obscurity as the investigation goes on.

“We have this outward outcry, you know, social media outrage, media everywhere. But, you know, it doesn’t last forever,” she said. 

“We have to watch everything. We have to monitor everything closely.”

Anti-immigrant rhetoric

She also says it’s time for Ireland to reckon with what she sees as a rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric that is eroding the hard-fought progress the country has made in tackling racism. 

Anti-immigrant protests ⁠have become more frequent in Ireland ⁠in recent years, including riots in central Dublin in 2023, close to where Sakila died.

She says lawmakers in Ireland use immigration as a “political ladder,” promising to crack down on it in order to boost their careers.

“Immigration is not a thing. It’s human lives. Behind that word, immigration, are families, sons, daughters, mothers, children — human beings.”