Video reveals how Irvo Otieno was brutalised before his death in the US
A video played in court on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, has shown how Mr Irvo Otieno, the Kenyan who recently died in the US, was pinned to the ground by a group of employees in a mental hospital in Virginia and Sheriff’s deputies.
In the incident which took place on March 6, 2023, the group is seen struggling to handcuff Mr Otieno for almost 20 minutes. Moments later, he is led into a room at Central State Hospital where he was to be admitted.
“For most of that duration, Mr Otieno is on the floor being restrained by a fluctuating group that at one point appeared to reach 10 people pressing down on various parts of his body,” international media reported this week.
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His death has seen seven deputies and three hospital workers charged with second-degree murder as they prosecution said that he was brutally treated. Attorneys for many of the defendants have said they will contest the charges.
“They smothered him to death because he died of asphyxia due to suffocation. The incident was captured on video that is ‘extremely clear, extremely alarming.’ The video is 12 minutes long and shows “deliberate and cruel treatment’,” the attorney stated.
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Mr Otieno’s relatives were shown the video from the hospital last week by a prosecutor, Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill, who said that she was to release it on Tuesday.
The seven officers facing charges are Randy Joseph Boyer, 57, Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37, Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45, Bradley Thomas Disse, 43, Tabitha Renee Levere, 50, Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48 and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30.
The Henrico police officers claimed the deceased was violent when he wasarrested and had to be restrained. His body was then transferred to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy.
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