CCTV Shows 7 US Cops Pinning Kenyan Man, Choking Him To Death [VIDEO]

CCTV footage that was released by a prosecutor in the US on Tuesday, March 21 captured a Kenyan man, Irvo Otieno, being pinned to the floor by multiple security officers at a Virginia state mental health facility in the moments leading to his death on Monday, March 6.

The video which was shared by multiple US news agencies showed Otieno, bound by his hands and feet, forcibly taken into a room and dragged into an upright seated position on the floor with his back against a chair.

10 minutes later, after Otieno has turned onto his side with three people holding him, his body jerks and five more deputies and workers move to pin Otieno to the floor.

Here's the video (WARNING: CONTAINS DISTURBING FOOTAGE)

A clear view of Otieno is blocked in much of the video, but one deputy was appearing to be lying across Otieno for most of the incident as he is forced onto his stomach.

Eventually, Otieno is rolled onto his back, where several deputies appear to be restraining him with their knees. One deputy holds Otieno’s head still by grabbing his braided hair.

After 12 minutes of Otieno being pinned to the ground, one deputy was seen shaking Otieno’s hair and attempting to take a neck pulse, but Otieno was unresponsive. Three more minutes passed before Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) began, with Otieno’s limbs still shackled.

Medical workers from the hospital were then seen converging on the room as CPR continued for nearly an hour. After he was pronounced dead, Otieno was covered in a white sheet, still lying on the floor, his body briefly left alone in the room.

Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill’s office had also released 911 calls about the incident in which a caller described Otieno as “very aggressive” and repeatedly asked for an ambulance, saying he was not breathing.

Taken together, the video and emergency calls offered further details of the final moments of Otieno, a 28-year-old man who died on March 6 as he was transferred from a Henrico County jail to Central State Hospital.

Seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital employees were indicted by a grand jury on March 21 on a charge of second-degree murder, according to court documents. In a hearing last week for the charges against the deputies, Baskervill told the court, “They smothered him to death.”

Baskervill initially declined to release the video but changed course after Otieno’s family approved. Notably, the recording excludes the audio.

Otieno’s family and their attorneys watched the video last week and said they were disturbed by how Otieno was treated during a mental health crisis.

“My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog. I saw it with my own eyes on the video,” Otieno’s mother, Caroline Ouko, was quoted by CNN at a news conference.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, argued that Otieno had requested help but instead got the excessive force, adding that he was not being aggressive or resisting.

“Irvo needed a helping hand. What he got was an overdose of excessive force.

"He was trying to breathe. If you were down there, restrained and all of these people on top of you, you would be trying to breathe. You would try to move, too, to let your lungs expand," he told reporters.

Crump also discussed how the video shows that no one else in the room tried to help during the entire 11 minutes that Otieno was being smothered.

“Everybody has an obligation to intervene in that circumstance, to say, ‘No, that’s not right.’ But nobody intervened. And then, when his body was lifeless, and his pants were dangling on him, they didn’t do anything," weighed in Mark Krudys, another family attorney, who described Otieno as “gasping for breath” in the video

Ouko while commenting on Tuesday's legal developments, said, “Those 10 monsters. Those 10 criminals. I was happy to hear that they were indicted and that is just the beginning step.”

The video was reminiscent of one which captured the final moments before the murder of George Floyd, who was handcuffed, forced to the ground and held down by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020.

That case sparked nationwide protests over police use of force, especially against people of colour before it spilt to protests across the world.

A selfie of the late George Floyd. /WIKIPEDIA