Three former employees members of a psychological hospital in Virginia had been arrested and charged Thursday with second-degree homicide in reference to the dying of a person who was delivered to the establishment from jail earlier this month.
Based on Dinwiddie County Commonwealth Lawyer Ann Cabell Baskervill, Irvo Otieno, 28, handed away on March 6 whereas he was being admitted to Central State Hospital in Petersburg about 25 miles south of Richmond. Otieno got here to the USA from Kenya together with his household on the age of 4, and grew up within the Richmond space.
The suspects Darian Blackwell, 23, Wavie Jones, 34, and Sadarius Williams, 27, will later face a grand jury which is able to determine whether or not the case in opposition to them ought to proceed.
With the newest spherical of arrests, there at the moment are 10 folks charged with homicide in Otieno’s dying, together with sheriff’s deputies.
On Thursday, the household watched surveillance footage that was taken contained in the psychological well being facility and confirmed Otieno’s dying. Ben Crump, a human rights lawyer for the household, claimed that seven sheriff’s deputies on the psychological well being facility tied Otieno and suffocated him to dying for 12 minutes. Crump can also be the lawyer for the household of Tyre Nichols, whose dying resulted in 5 Memphis cops being charged with second-degree homicide.
“What I noticed at the moment was heartbreaking, America. It was disturbing, it was traumatic,” Otieno’s mom, Caroline Ouko, mentioned at a press convention with Crump. “I noticed the torture.” A preliminary investigation by health workers discovered that Otieno died of asphyxiation. Based on the prosecution, Otenio was bodily restrained in the course of the consumption process, and state troopers had been instructed he was “combative.”
Additional arrests should be made, in accordance with authorities. In reference to Otieno’s dying, seven Henrico County, Virginia, sheriff’s deputies have additionally been detained and charged with second-degree homicide. Otieno was introduced into custody after which transported to a psychological well being hospital with out rationalization from authorities. The sheriff’s workplace is conducting a separate investigation into the incident whereas the deputies are on administrative go away.
