Irvo Otieno, 28, died in hospital in Petersburg on March 6 after being transferred from a local prison due to his mental condition. According to the preliminary results of the autopsy, he died of suffocation while “physically restrained,” the OM said in a statement.
Video footage of the incident was shown to the man’s family on Thursday. His mother told a press conference that what she saw was “heartbreaking”. According to her, seven police officers were busy with her son and kept going. “My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog. I saw it with my own eyes… they choked my baby,” she said.
According to their lawyer Ben Crump, who often represents families of black victims of police violence, Otieno was handcuffed. The seven officers, aged 30 to 57, held him for 12 minutes. The accused hospital employees are between 23 and 34 years old.
