Police within the U.S. discovered themselves within the eye of yet one more storm after disturbing video footage launched Tuesday confirmed the loss of life of a 28-year-old black man.
The video confirmed he was forcibly restrained by as many as 10 cops and hospital safety guards as was being admitted to a psychological hospital.
Irvo Otieno’s March 6 loss of life in Virginia has already drawn homicide prices in opposition to the officers and guards concerned, thrusting the highlight again on U.S. regulation enforcement brutality and the remedy of psychological well being sufferers particularly.
Otieno was already in handcuffs and leg restraints when police introduced him from the Henrico County jail close to Richmond, Virginia, to Central State Hospital in close by Petersburg.
The Washington Post revealed a nine-minute video, drawn from 27 minutes of hospital surveillance footage of the incident.
The edited clip exhibits the seven officers bringing the shirtless and shoeless Otieno right into a room on the hospital on March 6. In the video, he doesn’t seem to wrestle.
They place him on the ground after which maintain him down at size, the aim unclear, with one officer laying on him and one other apparently urgent his knee to Otieno’s head or neck, whereas as much as 10 hospital staff watch, some typically serving to out.
Eventually, he goes limp and efforts by police and hospital staff to resuscitate him proved fruitless.
Seven cops and three hospital staff, most of whom have been additionally African American, have been charged with second-degree homicide within the case.
Otieno was taken by police into custody three days earlier after experiencing a psychological well being disaster.
Held for 3 days within the native jail, he was then transferred to the Central State Hospital, the place he died.
According to preliminary post-mortem outcomes, he died of asphyxiation whereas being “physically restrained,” Dinwiddie County District Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill mentioned in an announcement.
Last week his mom Caroline Ouko mentioned he was “going through mental illness.”
“My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog. I saw it with my own eyes … they smothered my baby,” she mentioned.
Ben Crump, a nationally-known legal professional who has represented the households of numerous African Americans killed or injured in police custody, has been retained by Otieno’s household.
Crump has drawn a parallel between Otieno’s case and the homicide of George Floyd, a Black man whose videotaped loss of life below the knee of a Minneapolis police officer shocked the world in 2020, triggering a mass mobilization in opposition to racism and police brutality.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
