Video shows Virginia deputies pile on top of shackled black man in mental hospital for 11 MINUTES
A disturbing video shows Virginia sheriff’s deputies piling on a chained black man in a mental hospital for 11 minutes until he stops moving.
Seven officers and three hospital employees were indicted today by a grand jury for manslaughter after the death of Irvo Otieno in police custody on March 6.
The allegations came as new footage revealed the 28-year-old’s harrowing death after being taken in handcuffs and leg shackles from the Henrico County Jail near Richmond, Virginia, to Central State Hospital in nearby Petersburg.
The surveillance video, without sound, shows ten deputies and medical personnel dragging him to the hospital’s recording room. They place him on the floor and then hold him down, the purpose is unclear, with one officer lying on top of him and another apparently pressing his knee against Otieno’s head or neck, as up to 10 hospital staff watch, some of whom assist occasionally .
Eventually he becomes limping and attempts by police and hospital staff to resuscitate him proved fruitless.
Irvo Otieno, 28, was seen on security camera footage on March 6 handcuffed by the deputies who pushed down “every part of his body” with “absolute brutality,” a lawyer for his family said
A Dinwiddie County grand jury today indicted seven deputies and three hospital employees, most of whom are black. Pictured: Dwayne Bramble and Jermaine Branch
Deputy Tabitha Levere
A Dinwiddie County grand jury today indicted seven deputies and three hospital employees, most of whom are black.
The delegates are Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30, Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37, Bradley Thomas Disse, 43, Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45, Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48, Tabitha Renee Levere, 50, and Randy Joseph Boyer, 57.
The hospital staff are Darian M. Blackwell, 23, Wavie L. Jones, 34, and Sadarius D. Williams, 27.
Otieno was taken into police custody three days earlier after going through a mental health crisis.
Held in the local jail for three days, he was then transferred to Central State Hospital, where he died.
According to preliminary autopsy results, he died of asphyxia while “physically bound,” Dinwiddie County District Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said in a statement.
Last week, his mother Caroline Ouko said he was “mentally ill.”
‘My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog. I saw it with my own eyes… they smothered my baby,” she said.
Representatives Bradley Disse and Brandon Rodgers
Deputy Sheriffs Kaiyell Sanders and Randy Boyer
Three hospital employees were also charged. Pictured: hospital worker Wavie L. Jones
Hospital workers Sadarius D. Williams and Darian M. Blackwell
The family is represented by Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney who also represented George Floyd’s family.
Crump has said Otieno’s treatment bears close parallels to the 2020 murder of Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
“When we think about the tragic murder of George Floyd, you say, ‘Why would someone, why would a law enforcement officer put a knee on the neck of a person who is lying face down, handcuffed and bound?'” Crump said to a press conference last week.
“Wouldn’t someone have common sense enough to say, ‘We’ve seen this movie before?’
Douglas Ramseur, representing one of the hospital employees, told The Washington Post — which was the first to get its hands on the footage — that he was concerned that the videolink lawsuit was filed “with the intent to make the information available to the media and received the public following a motion from the defense to prevent just such disclosure.”
“We are considering all our legal remedies,” Ramseur wrote in an email, the newspaper reported.
His family, who is from Kenya, described him as a much loved and respected young man, an aspiring musician who had been a well known high school athlete in the area.
During the meeting, prosecutors said Otieno did not appear combative and sat in a chair before being pulled to the floor by officers. Pictured: Central State Hospital in Dinwiddle County, Virginia
Otieno’s family can’t understand why he was taken from prison to the state hospital, about 45 minutes away, instead of a local mental health facility
Otieno, whose first name was pronounced ‘Ivo’, was 4 when his family immigrated to the US from Kenya.
He grew up in suburban Richmond and began dealing with mental health issues during his senior year of high school, his mother said.
According to this family, he suffered from psychological problems during his first meeting with the police earlier this month.
That set off a chain of events that led to him being held in custody for several days, first at a local hospital and then a prison, before dying at the state hospital.
While in prison, Otieno was denied access to needed medicines, the family’s lawyers have said.
The family also viewed video from that facility on Thursday, which they say showed Otieno being subjected to further brutality by unidentified officers. That video has not been made available.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has said the case is a stark reminder of why the state’s mental health system “needs to be transformed at every level.”
He has also called on the public to respect the ongoing legal process.