Lawyers have differing views on what Irvo Otieno video shows
As a video was released publicly this week showing sheriff’s deputies and employees of Central State Hospital pinning Irvo Otieno to the floor, attorneys for several of the defendants charged with second-degree murder in his death began to weigh in to defend their clients.
During bond hearings and through statements, lawyers sought to distinguish their clients from the mass of bodies involved in holding Otieno to the floor for over 10 minutes.
One said in court that his client only worked to secure leg irons on Otieno, while another said his client put his body weight on the man for just a short period of time and then tried to position Otieno on his side so he would not have trouble breathing.
People are also reading…
Some defense attorneys also said their clients were only trying to restrain Otieno and there was no evidence of an intent to kill the 28-year-old Black man as deputies sought to have him admitted to the mental hospital on March 6.
“At no time did he realize that Mr. Otieno … was in any danger whatsoever,” said attorney Caleb Kershner, who represents one of the seven Henrico County deputies who have been charged, along with three hospital employees.
Family members of Irvo Otieno and their lawyers on Tuesday called for mental health reform and steps to be taken to avoid a repeat of what happened to the 28-year-old Henrico County man who died earlier this month in a Central State Hospital intake room.
But Otieno’s family and their lawyers, including prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump, pushed back against any attempt to minimize the role they say individuals in the crowded room played in Otieno’s death.
During a press conference Tuesday evening, family attorney Mark Krudys quoted some of the language used by defense counsel during bond hearings earlier that day, including a description of Otieno as being in obvious need of medical attention.
“Despite that they piled on him,” Krudys said. “Ten individuals.”
Krudys and Crump said the defense attorneys were offering “excuses” for what the video showed while trying to cast Otieno, who was shackled and handcuffed, as combative.
“They are trying to say … ‘Well, he was struggling. Well, he was still resisting.’ No he wasn’t. He was trying to breathe,” Crump said at the news conference, which was punctuated by sobs from Otieno’s mother.
Attorneys: Otieno was resistant
Otieno’s family has said he was brutally mistreated not only at the hospital where he died but also while in law enforcement custody beforehand.
Otieno, whose family said he had long-running mental health struggles, was initially taken to Henrico Doctors’ Hospital by police for psychiatric care March 3. But after authorities said he became combative, he was criminally charged and transferred to the jail. His family says he was denied access to needed medication during his time there.
News outlets, including The Times-Dispatch, obtained video this week of the events that preceded Otieno’s death at the state mental hospital in Dinwiddie County. The prosecutor had previously shown the footage, for which there is no audio, to Otieno’s relatives and attorneys.
According to timestamps, an SUV carrying Otieno arrived at the hospital just before 4 p.m. March 6.
In court, defense attorneys said that before he arrived there he was resistant. One said it took approximately 12 officers to get Otieno out of his cell at the jail.
Video from the hospital shows that nearly 20 minutes after the SUV’s arrival, officers remove Otieno from the vehicle and escort him inside. He appears to be upright but hunched over.
By 4:19., a different camera shows him being forcibly led into a room with tables and chairs. He is hauled toward a seat and eventually slumps to the floor, first seated and then lying flat.
Otieno
An increasing number of people become involved in holding Otieno down. At times his shirtless body is obscured by the sheer number of bodies or by someone standing front of the camera.
The Rev. Al Sharpton asked to deliver eulogy at Otieno funeral
The case has garnered national attention, and Crump has also represented families in high-profile police killings including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Irvo Otieno should be alive today.
While I’m glad to see swift oversight of the circumstances surrounding his death, we absolutely must have better practices in place to ensure folks in mental health crisis are supported and safe. We must stop these senseless tragedies.
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) March 22, 2023
The Rev. Al Sharpton also has been asked to deliver the eulogy at Otieno’s funeral, his National Action Network said Wednesday. Details have not been announced.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in a tweet on Wednesday called for actions to “improve how we handle mental and behavioral health crises.”
“Horrified by the senseless murder of Irvo Otieno and thinking about his loved ones. A full and thorough investigation is necessary,” he said.
Said Mark Warner, D-Va., in a Twitter post: “Irvo Otieno should be alive today. While I’m glad to see swift oversight of the circumstances surrounding his death, we absolutely must have better practices in place to ensure folks in mental health crisis are supported and safe. We must stop these senseless tragedies.”
Steve Benjamin, a Richmond criminal defense attorney who serves as special counsel to the Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee and is not involved with the case, said the video by itself is not enough to determine the criminal culpability of the deputies or hospital workers.
“We don’t know if those who were observing were saying to the deputies, ‘Get off him, he can’t breathe.’ We don’t know if he was saying he couldn’t breathe or if he was threatening violence to those who were trying to restrain him. We simply have no idea,” Benjamin said.
This still from the video provided by Central State Hospital and Dinwiddie County shows deputies and hospital employees on top of Otieno, who lies on the floor at Central State Hospital, on March 6 in Petersburg. Footage obtained Tuesday, which has no audio, shows various members of sheriff’s deputies and employees attempting to restrain a handcuffed and shackled Otieno for about 20 minutes after he’s led into a room at the hospital, where he was going to be admitted.
“Our reaction to that video is human and natural,” he said, “but it doesn’t go very far in answering the question of, ‘was there a criminal offense committed here?’”
In Virginia case law, second-degree murder is generally defined as the malicious killing of another, meaning the conduct must be so likely to cause death or serious injury that it demonstrates utter and callous disregard for life.
The first charges in the case were announced last week against the deputies, followed by the hospital workers two days later. Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said in an email Wednesday that while she doesn’t have additional charges “in the pipeline,” the state police investigation remains ongoing.
A separate investigation into the events preceding Otieno’s death — at both the hospital and the jail — is also ongoing, according to Henrico County Commonwealth’s attorney Shannon Taylor.
This is a timeline of events regarding the death of Irvo N. Otieno, 28, from the initial complaint in his Henrico neighborhood on March 2, to his death at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County on March 6.
All 10 defendants have been granted bond and have pre-trial hearings set for late April or May.
Final autopsy findings have not been released. Baskervill has said in court that Otieno died of asphyxiation, though some defense attorneys have raised the possibility that injections administered at the hospital may have played a role.
Richmond television station WRIC reported Wednesday that Dinwiddie Circuit Court Judge Joseph M. Teefey Jr. denied a request by lawyers of one of the charged deputies to prevent Otieno’s body from being released. Attorneys for Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30, of North Chesterfield, filed a motion to keep the body available in case a second a second autopsy would be pursued after the medical examiner’s autopsy report was issued.
Mugshots: 10 charged in death of Irvo Otieno
Kaiyell Sanders
Sanders
Randy Boyer
Boyer
Tabitha Levere
Levere
Bradley Disse
Disse
Dwayne Bramble
Bramble
Jermaine Branch
Branch
Brandon Rogers
Rogers
Darian Blackwell
Darian Blackwell
Sadarius Williams
Sadarius Williams
Wavie Jones
Wavie Jones
Family of Irvo Otieno calls for justice as video shows death in custody
Family members of Irvo Otieno and their lawyers on Tuesday called for mental health reform and steps to be taken to avoid a repeat of what happened to the 28-year-old Henrico County man who died earlier this month in a Central State Hospital intake room.
“A mental health crisis should not be a death sentence,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference the First Baptist Church of South Richmond. “We don’t want anybody else in America whose family is dealing with a mental health crisis to be killed by the very people who are supposed to help them.”
The comments came after the release of a video from the mental hospital showing Otieno being pinned to the floor prior to his death on March 6. A Dinwiddie County grand jury on Tuesday indicted seven Henrico County deputies and three hospital workers on second-degree murder charges in a case that has garnered national attention.
In this image from a Central State Hospital camera, Henrico County sheriff’s deputies and other workers are shown with Irvo Otieno on March 6. The image was taken at 4:29 p.m.
Crump, who also represented the family of George Floyd, has said Otieno’s treatment has close parallels with Floyd’s killing in police custody in Minneapolis in 2020.
“It is not lost on anybody who saw that video today, the fact that it was so unnecessary,” Crump said Tuesday. “Irvo was handcuffed at the wrist, he had leg irons on, he was facedown. Why did they feel it was necessary to put all their weight on him, for some of the officers to put their knee on his neck?”
Caleb Kershner, a defense attorney for deputy Randy Boyer, was critical of the video being released and took issue with Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s attorney Ann Baskervill.
“It’s going to be more difficult to find a jury that has not been tainted or read a particular news story of any sort. So I’m disappointed in it,” he said earlier Tuesday after the court hearing in Dinwiddie County.
Otieno’s mother Caroline Ouko on Tuesday called the indicted deputies and hospital employees “thugs” and “monsters.”
“I was happy to hear that they were indicted,” Ouko said. “That is just the beginning step.”
The following video shows Irvo Otieno on March 6 at the Central State Hospital. Read more coverage here: https://bit.ly/3TvxZAN
attorney Mark Krudys said he was troubled by the individuals who stood by and watched as the officers pushed down on Otieno.
“Everybody has an obligation to intervene in that circumstance, to say ‘no, that’s not right,’” Krudys said. “But nobody intervened. And then when his body was lifeless, and his pants were dangling on him, they didn’t do anything for an appreciable period of time.”
Krudys said his team is looking into possible body camera footage from Henrico police regarding a March 3 incident, when Otieno was transported from his Henrico home to Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.
Ouko said she was excluded in the process of advocating for her son, noting that she made four attempts to see him while he was at Henrico hospital.
“In mental health and mental distress, your child needs you,” Ouko said. “Seeing me could have made have made a big difference.”
Instead, Otieno was taken to the Henrico Jail and later to Central State. Krudys said the deputies were not wearing body cameras at either location.
My thoughts on the untimely death of Irvo Otieno: pic.twitter.com/4mGiKiLq7e
— Mayor Levar M. Stoney (@LevarStoney) March 21, 2023
Henrico NAACP Vice President Monica Hutchinson during the Tuesday press conference said: “Jail is not, nor has it ever been, the best place for those having a mental health crisis. We must eliminate the use of jail as a response to a mental health crisis and mental illness, and instead work to improve access to community-based crisis centers.”
Otieno’s brother Leon Ochieng urged Gov. Glenn Youngkin to make mental health a priority, pointing out Youngkin’s recent comments calling Otieno’s death “heart-wrenching.”
“If you really do empathize and feel what we feel, do something,” Ochieng said. “Let your state be an example … all we need to do is make this an agenda to put pressure on lawmakers to invite our communities to have families who are ambassadors for mental health.”
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney in a social media post on Tuesday said: “Irvo Otieno should be alive today. His life was taken in a place where he should have been safe. We need accountability and we need more mental health resources.”
Read the story at https://bit.ly/40291Le
attorney-ann-cabell-baskervill%2Farticle_adce2a8e-c903-11ed-9d45-a313bee186a9.html&c=10651137940164321963&mkt=en-us”>Source link
Attorneys and law firms can elevate their online presence with professionally written content from SEO Content Writing Services monthly plan. Our team of experienced writers specializes in crafting blog posts, articles, and written content that accurately reflect the expertise and knowledge of our clients in the legal field. With a keen eye for detail and a thorough understanding of legal terminology, we provide high-quality writing that helps our clients stand out from their competition and engage with their target audience. Trust SEO Content Writing Services for one time article writing or monthly written content to handle all of your written content needs and showcase your law firm's expertise.
If you need written content, blog posts, or articles professionally written for your website, we can help. Go HERE to find out more.
or email us here: myseowritingservices@gmail.com
To find out more about our article writing or blog post services, fill out the form, thank you.