Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old mentally ill man, died March 6 after officers suffocated him while he was handcuffed and shackled on the floor of a hospital.
It is tentatively believed that the man, of Kenyan origin, died from lack of oxygen when he was admitted to Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County, where police took him for an examination.
That city’s prosecutor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, said in court that Otieno suffocated under the weight of the seven officers who held him for 12 minutes, CBS 6 News reported.
Officers allegedly resorted to violence because the detainee was aggressive, but Baskervill says the videos show he was neither agitated nor combative.
The victim’s family lawyer, Mark Krudys, clarified that the young man was detained on March 3, after which his mother tried to send him his medication.
Although the agents initially didn’t allow him to take her, they later accepted one of them and said he would receive medical attention in a few days, Krudys said.
Otieno’s death comes as the country’s police departments face increasing scrutiny over arrests that result in death.
Earlier this year, Tire Nichols, a 29-year-old black man who was stopped at a traffic stop, was beaten by officers for about three minutes on the night of Jan. 7 in Memphis, Tennessee, and died three days later.
According to a study by the Leadership Conference Education Fund and the Government Oversight Project, the federal government doesn’t know exactly how many inmates die under police supervision.
“Every day people lose their lives in detention, detention and police custody, but we have no idea who they are, how they are dying or how best to prevent future deaths,” said Bree Spencer, director, in a statement from the interim program education fund.
Limited Justice Department data shows a total of 1,200 people died in local jails in 2019, up five percent from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the death rate among those imprisoned but not convicted reached an all-time high.
According to reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 77 percent of people who died in local jails in 2019 were not charged with a crime at the time of their death.
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