Status: 03/17/2023 10:26 am
Another black man has been killed in a police operation in the United States. A video shows how seven police officers fix the tied man for minutes until he suffocates. The public prosecutor has filed charges against the officers.
In another case of alleged police violence against a black man in the United States, seven police officers and three hospital workers have been charged with manslaughter. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the police of having the 28-year-old black man Irvo Otieno in a psychiatric hospital in the state of Virginia fixed to the floor for eleven minutes in such a way that he suffocated. That was the result of the autopsy. Otieno was reportedly handcuffed and anklecuffed and did not resist.
Video was shown to relatives
There is a surveillance video of the incident, but the public prosecutor’s office has not yet released it. But Otieno’s relatives could see it. “My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog,” the mother later told US media. “My son was tortured.”
The US broadcaster CNN quoted the prosecutor as saying that the video was “extremely clear” and “extremely alarming”.
Prominent lawyer helps family
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said the video showed how law enforcement officers treated people in a mental health crisis inhumanely: as criminals rather than people in need of help, according to CNN. Otieno did not pose a threat. “He’s not violent or aggressive toward them.” You can see how he appears to be unconscious, but is still “brutally fixed with a knee on his neck”. Crump had already supported the family of George Floyd, who was killed by US police officers.
Otieno was arrested for a burglary in early March. According to his mother, he is said to have already had mental problems at this point. On March 6, he was transferred from prison to a state psychiatric facility, where he died during admission. According to the police, he had become “combative” and had to be held back.