Watch | Footage shows cops piling on Irvo Otieno before he died

Prosecutors in Virginia released video footage on Tuesday (March 21) that showed the death of 28-year-old Black inmate Irvo Otieno as he was being admitted to a mental hospital, where he was forcibly restrained by as many as 10 police officers and hospital security guards. Otieno was already in handcuffs and leg restraints when police brought him from the Henrico County jail near Richmond, Virginia, to the Central State Hospital in nearby Petersburg.

The nine-minute-long footage, published by the Washington Post, showed seven officers bringing the shirtless and shoeless Otieno into a room at the hospital on March 6. Otieno, however, did not seem to struggle.

The officers placed him on the floor and then held him down at length, the purpose unclear, with one officer laying on him and another pressing his knee to Otieno's head or neck. At the same time, up to 10 hospital workers watched, some sometimes helping out.

Eventually, the 28-year-old went limp and efforts to resuscitate him proved fruitless.

Taking to Twitter, Ben Crump, an attorney for Otieno's family, shared a short video from the footage, and said, "Newly released hospital surveillance of Irvo Otieno’s death shows him being DRAGGED into an admissions room in handcuffs and leg irons. Then Henrico County (VA) sheriff's deputies & medical staff PILE on top of the shackled 28-yo for 11 MINUTES until he stops moving."

Otieno was taken by police into custody three days earlier after experiencing a mental health crisis. Held for three days in the local jail, he was then transferred to the Central State Hospital, where he died.

Last week, three hospital workers and seven police officers faced charges of second-degree murder in connection with his death. In a statement, Dinwiddie Country District Attorney Ann Cabell said that Otieno died of asphyxiation while being physically restrained.

According to the results of the preliminary autopsy, Otieno died of asphyxiation while being "physically restrained”, said Dinwiddie County District Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill in a statement.

The family's attorney Ben Crump had earlier drawn a parallel between Otieno's case and the murder of George Floyd, whose death in 2020 triggered a mass mobilisation against racism and police brutality.

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