Police officers restrain and choke an African-American man in the U.S.
New video evidence shows several police officers huddled over the body of a young African-American man.who died on March 6 of asphyxiation in police custody, according to national media on Tuesday.
Irvo Otieno, 28, died while waiting in a ward of the Central State Hospital in Virginia (USA), where he was sent from a Henrico County jail. Surveillance cameras recorded Otieno, handcuffed and shackled in leg irons, being escorted to the admission room of the health center, located in Dinwiddie County, at 16.19 local time (20.19 GMT) on March 6.
The footage shows the young man being laid on the floor by the officers and, ten minutes later, after he was rolled onto his side with three people holding him down, more officers and medical workers arrive to restrain him.
Otieno is placed face up, where several policemen appear to hold him down with their knees and an agent grabs his head by his braided hair. After 12 minutes immobilized, an agent is seen trying to take his pulse, but Otieno is unresponsive and three minutes they try to revive him.
Last Thursday, three hospital workers were charged for Otieno’s death, who were added to those seven Henrico Sheriff’s Office deputies who were arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Otieno had been arrested and taken into emergency custody, used with individuals who may be mentally ill, after being accused of assaulting a Henrico County police officer last March 3, local authorities reported. The day after being arrested, Otieno was transferred to the state hospital, where he later died.
Disproportionate violence
The case of this young African-American man comes just over two months after the death of Tyre Nichols, a black man who died from a police beating in Memphis.sparking outrage across the country.
The U.S. police have been singled out for human rights organizations of disproportionate use of violence. toward the black population in the country. Nearly one-third of all people killed by police in the U.S. in 2021 were African Americans, despite making up only 13% of the country’s population, according to Mapping Police Violence.
