The Alameda County District Lawyer’s Workplace in California announced fees on Thursday in opposition to three Metropolis of Alameda cops for involuntary manslaughter of detainee Mario Gonzalez.
On April 19, 2021, the officers tried to detain Gonzalez after receiving “a name involving a person behaving oddly in a public park”. They later realized he was a suspect in a shoplifting incident. Physique-cam footage reviewed by JURIST exhibits the officers struggling to handcuff Gonzalez, forcing him to the bottom and holding him there for minutes. Gonzalez then died on the scene.
An preliminary investigation didn’t discover any police misconduct. The post-mortem pointed to methamphetamine as the reason for demise, with stress from the restraint, weight problems and alcoholism as contributing components. However the District Lawyer’s Workplace reopened the case later, and a second post-mortem pointed to asphyxiation from the restraint as the reason for demise.
The District Lawyer’s Workplace charged the officers with involuntary manslaughter below section 192(b) of the California Penal Code. That statute criminalizes “the illegal killing of a human being with out malice … within the fee of a lawful act which could product demise, in an illegal method, or with out due warning and circumspection.” Which means the prosecutors must show that the officers had been negligent in restraining Gonzalez and that the restraint brought about his demise.
Information reporters have compared the collection of occasions to the demise of George Floyd in 2020. In that case, a jury discovered former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of homicide and manslaughter. California has beforehand sought to handle police misconduct in Los Angeles and to higher maintain cops accountable.
