In the United States, there is apparently another case of brutal police violence: Seven officers have been charged in the state of Virginia with being responsible for the death of an African American prison inmate in a psychiatric clinic. In addition, three employees of the hospital were charged, the public prosecutor announced.
Irvo Otieno, 28, died March 6 at a state mental health facility during the admissions process after being transferred there from a prison, prosecutor Ann Cabell Baskervill said. Otieno was handcuffed and anklecuffed and was held on the ground by the seven police officers for eleven minutes. “He died of suffocation because he was crushed.”
The public prosecutor says they have a video of the incident. Prosecutor Baskerville said the surveillance video was “extremely clear” and “extremely alarming,” according to CNN. The tape is not currently released to the public. However, Otieno’s family has since been shown. The relatives raised serious allegations against the police after viewing the video. “My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog,” US media quoted the victim’s mother, Caroline Ouko, as saying on Thursday (local time). “My son was tortured.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who previously provided legal support to the family of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed in a police operation, said the video shows how inhumanely law enforcement officials treated people who had a mental health crisis: as criminals instead of people who needed help . 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 compared the scenes in the video to the death of George Floyd, who was handcuffed, pinned to the ground and restrained by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020. According to the Washington Post, two lawyers for Otieno’s family called on the Justice Department to investigate the incident.
Otieno’s mother, Ouko, said her son, who wanted to be a hip-hop musician, was mentally ill. He also had mental health issues when he was arrested on March 3 for an alleged burglary. He was admitted to the hospital three days later. According to the police, he became “combative” there and was held back.
In the United States, there are regular deadly police operations of a similar nature. The case of George Floyd is representative of this: In May 2020, the African American died in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis. The case led to nationwide protests against police violence and racism. Since then, there has always been dismay at similar cases.
