A video shows how several policemen "stacked" on a black man before he died

Caroline Ouko, mother of Irvo Otieno, assured that her son was treated worse than an animal.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
21 March 2023 Tuesday 08:25
17 Reads
A video shows how several policemen "stacked" on a black man before he died

Caroline Ouko, mother of Irvo Otieno, assured that her son was treated worse than an animal.

The death of the African-American Otieno, in a Virginia hospital, has led to the arrest and indictment of seven agents of the Henrico County Sheriff's Office and three employees of the health center. The family has described this matter as another case of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis in May 2020, after being reduced to the ground, handcuffed and with the pressure of the white police officer Derek Chauvin's knee on his neck for about half an hour. . This other black man was in a similar situation for just over ten minutes.

A video that captured that final moment in Otieno's life shows how several agents and health personnel "stacked" on the 28-year-old detainee, who eventually cannot move.

The security camera recorded these images on the 6th at the central hospital in Virginia. Several uniformed men drag Otieno, who is handcuffed and with his ankles chained, to the admissions room, first taking him to a table and then laying him on the floor.

There is a point where you can count up to 10 agents, some of them heavyweights, and medical personnel on or around it, plus others who are watching. In that scene you can barely see Otieno and it is not clear what exactly happened to cause that human avalanche on the detainee.

They had him for eleven minutes until it is seen that he no longer moves, always from The Washington Post, which revealed nine minutes of recording. There is no sound in that video.

Shortly after no mobility was observed in the detainee, the police released his apparently flaccid body. The paramedics performed chest compression resuscitation and a defibrillator on the upper body, before they covered him with the fateful white sheet.

Prosecutors said the agents said in their statement that Otieno resisted. The video was to be published this Tuesday (the Post was advanced), although the defense lawyers wanted to block it on the grounds that it could interfere with the investigation and the subsequent selection of jurors for the trial.

“They just killed him,” the mother said last week, after family and lawyers were allowed to view the recording. Ouko assured that her son suffered from mental problems and only required medical attention.

Otieno was arrested on March 3, following the police response to a theft complaint. Once arrested, without it being clear that he was the one wanted, he was placed under an emergency surveillance order, a measure taken in cases of mental illness.

After three days of being locked up in the cell, in subhuman conditions, according to the mother, they transferred him to the hospital for "violent physical conduct." He died after a while.