Surveillance video from a psychiatric facility in Virginia shows seven sheriff’s deputies and three employees of the psychiatric hospital piling on top of a 28-year-old African-American man who was handcuffed for about 11 minutes, until he stopped moving, first reported by The Washington Post.
Also on Tuesday a grand jury returned second-degree murder charges against the 10 people arrested last week for the death of Irvo Otieno on March 6 in a serious incident involving police abuse that caused the death of the detainee.
BREAKING: A Dinwiddie County grand jury has indicted 7 Henrico County deputies and 3 Virginia hospital employees with 2nd-degree murder for their involvement in the smothering death of Irvo Otieno. pic.twitter.com/RICA2qRErU
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) March 21, 2023
The Washington Post published a 9-minute clip of the video on Tuesday morning, ahead of its planned release. The newspaper says it obtained the recording by clicking on links in a public court filing by the prosecutor in the case.
the creepy video with violent images that may hurt sensitivity, was shared on YouTube by CBS News, which warned that it “shows the moments surrounding the death of 28-year-old Irvo Otieno, who suffocated to death while in police custody.”
Terrible and violent death
The events occurred at Central State Hospital, originally known as Central Lunatic Asylum, is a psychiatric hospital in Petersburg, Virginia.
The video with violent images, shows Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies dragging patient Irvo Otieno, handcuffed and shirtless, to an almost empty room at Central State Hospital with several small tables, and placing him in some kind of seat, with a timestamp of 4:19 p.m. Then it cuts to 4:26 p.m., when the agents move Otieno to the floor and begin to pile on top of him.
In a moment, a total of 10 people (sheriffs and hospital employees) can be seen covering and pressing his entire body, while several others stand around watching. They gradually get up and roll over Otieno’s visibly limp body at 4:39 pm, when a worker approaches to give him an injection.
Rescue efforts, including CPR and defibrillation, began within minutes and lasted less than an hour: The Post reported that a medical technician covered Otieno with a white sheet at 5:48 p.m.
Otieno had been arrested three days earlier while suffering from mental health problems near his home in Henrico County, south of Richmond, Virginia.
Those responsible arrested and charged
Dinwiddie County Commonwealth Prosecutor Ann Cabell Baskervill said in two separate announcements last week that the 10 people had been arrested after she filed a criminal information charge, a relatively rare step that unnecessarily launches criminal proceedings. of the grand jury vote in Virginia.
She said at the time that she had done it for protect people in jail who would otherwise have come into contact with those law enforcement officers, and that the case would go before a grand jury the following week “for a final determination of future charges.” .”
State law still requires the case to go to a grand jury before it can go to trial, Virginia Public Media reported.
A review of the case
Otieno’s lawyers, Mark Krudys and Ben Crump, described his death as the culmination of a “continuity of abuse” he faced after being detained during an episode of mental health issues on March 3.
Police briefly took Otieno to a local hospital, but he was transferred to a jail. after they said he “became physically aggressive”, though his family said he was relaxed, even asleep at one point, and his lawyers have questioned why he was not allowed to stay in hospital for 72 hours.
Then, Otieno spent three days in jail, where his lawyers say he was pepper-sprayed (and unable to rinse his eyes because he was handcuffed) and deprived of his medication, which his mother had tried repeatedly but to no avail, at the hospital.
They say that another video shows officers aggressively entering Otieno’s small cell, where he was sitting naked with feces on the floor, and pulling him out by his arms and legs. He was taken with heavy police presence to Central State Hospital, a state-run inpatient psychiatric facility, about 50 miles away.
Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the hospital at 3:58 pm admitting Otieno as a patient, according to the prosecutor. His lawyers, who have seen surveillance video from inside the hospital, say he was physically restrained, with handcuffs and leg irons, and that he appeared “almost lifeless” as he entered the room.
According to the statement from the prosecutor’s office, officers later told state police that Otieno had become a “combatant during the intake process,” which his lawyers and family say he is refuted by the videowhich they saw last Thursday and which shows deputies pushing Otieno to the ground and piling on top of him for more than 11 minutes.
One of Irvo Oteno’s family attorneys was with them Tuesday when video of Oteno’s death was released publicly.
The latest incident of police abuse and death of a detainee caught on video
Otieno is the latest black man to be killed by law enforcement in an incident that was caught on camera Of videoprompting community outrage and calls for accountability.
Otieno’s family has said his death resembles the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.which sparked demonstrations across the country.
It also follows the death of Tire Nichols, a 29-year-old black man who died after he was pulled over and beaten by police during a traffic stop in Memphis earlier this year. That incident was also caught on camera.
Keep reading:
• Las Vegas African-American family gets $8,250,000 to compensate police abuse
• Five former Memphis police officers involved in the death of Tire Nichols plead not guilty
• The US government imposes limits on the use of force by federal police agencies.