2 Indianapolis police officers face trial in Black man’s death during mental health crisis
INDIANAPOLIS — Two Indianapolis police officers will appear in court Monday death of a black man after police shocked him with a Taser and restrained him face down during a mental health crisis at his parents’ home.
Officers Adam Ahmad and Steven Sanchez were indicted by a grand jury in April 2023 in the death of Herman Whitfield III in 2022. The officers, who have been on administrative leave, are being tried together as co-defendants.
The men each face one felony count of involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, battery causing serious bodily injury and battery causing moderate injury, and one misdemeanor battery charge.
Opening statements are scheduled for Monday morning in the trial, which is expected to last five days.
Ahmad, 32, and Sanchez, 35, were charged after Whitfield’s family spent nearly a year demanding police release full body camera footage of his encounter with officers and calling for the firing of up to six officers.
The videos, released in January 2023, document Whitfield’s final moments during a chaotic encounter with police.
Whitfield’s parents called 911 on April 25, 2022, reporting that their 39-year-old son, a gifted pianist, was in the throes of a mental health crisis at the family’s home in Indianapolis.
Responding officers found Whitfield naked and pacing inside the home. Body camera footage shows officers trying to convince Whitfield to put on clothes so he can be taken to a hospital. But Whitfield did not get dressed and he avoided contact with the officers and went from room to room.
Whitfield is eventually seen walking past a dining room table before Sanchez shocks him with a Taser and Whitfield falls to the floor, knocking over furniture. Sanchez, Ahmad and other officers are seen holding a struggling Whitfield face down on the ground as they attempt to handcuff him.
Whitfield can be heard saying and exclaiming “can’t breathe” a few times before finally going silent. When officers turned the handcuffed Whitfield around, he was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The Marion County Coroner’s Office ruled Whitfield’s death a homicide. An autopsy lists his cause of death as “cardiopulmonary arrest in the context of subdual law enforcement, coercion and guided use of electrical weapons.”
According to the report, Whitfield weighed 389 pounds (176 kilograms). The coroner’s office listed “morbid obesity” and “hypertensive cardiovascular disease” as contributing factors to his death.
The officers’ attorney, John Kautzman, had sought to have the charges against both men dismissed, arguing in part that the grand jury proceedings were “flawed” and that “the facts stated do not constitute a criminal offense.”
The court dismissed a second charge of involuntary manslaughter that Sánchez had faced, but allowed the remaining charges against the officers to go to trial.
Kautzman said the involuntary manslaughter charge that was dismissed related to Sanchez’s use of a Taser against Whitfield.
“The only thing I will say on the record, which I have said before, is that we believe that these officers did not commit any criminal action and that they should not stand trial for any crimes,” Kautzman said last week.
Both Sanchez and Ahmad remain on administrative duty with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.
A civil lawsuit filed by Whitfield’s family against the city of Indianapolis and six police officers, including Ahmad and Sanchez, alleges that Whitfield “died because of the force used against him” and calls the force used against him “unreasonable and excessive.” ”
“Mr. Whitfield required professional mental health care, not the use of excessive force,” the filing said.
The family is seeking unspecified damages. That civil case will go to trial in federal court in Indianapolis in July 2025.