Three California police officers have been charged with manslaughter for killing a man in 2021 by holding him face down for five minutes until he lost consciousness.
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price announced the charges Thursday, three years after Mario Gonzalez, 26, died of suffocation. Officers Eric McKinley, James Fisher and Cameron Leahy could face up to four years in prison.
On April 21, 2021, three police officers from the city of Alameda in east Oakland encountered Gonzalez at a park after two residents called police saying he was acting strange. One caller said he had an alcohol bottle, and the other said: “He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just scaring his wife.”
Body camera footage showed Gonzalez appeared confused but spoke calmly with the first officer at the scene for several minutes. Two more officers arrived and attempted to restrain him, eventually forcing him to the ground and pinning him face down with their weight. Video showed he was held down for five minutes.
Initial police statements said Gonzalez died of a “medical emergency,” the same explanation given by Minneapolis police after the killing of George Floyd a year ago. was. A subsequent autopsy said the cause of Gonzalez’s death was “the toxic effects of methamphetamine,” and that key contributing factors included “physiological stress from the altercation and restraint,” “morbid obesity,” and “alcoholism.” The district attorney’s office announced Thursday that a second autopsy determined the cause was “asphyxia due to restraint.”
The former Alameda County district attorney declined to press charges, but Price, who was elected in 2022 on a promise to prioritize police accountability, reopened the case.
In December, the city agreed to pay Gonzalez’s family $11 million to settle a civil lawsuit.
“The family is finally feeling some real responsibility,” said Adante Poynter, a lawyer for Gonzalez’s mother. “There was overwhelming evidence that the officers violated their training. They knew that their aggressive restraint of Mario could result in death…This family has waited too long for justice.” This gives them some comfort, although there is still a gaping hole in their family ties.
Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi said: statement On Friday, he said previous investigations by the former district attorney, the sheriff’s office and the city had determined “no criminal activity or policy misconduct” and that his own review of the investigation had determined that “no Alameda police officer committed any illegality.” The statement concluded that he did not commit any such act.
“I support that decision today,” Joshi said.
Mr. Leahy and Mr. McKinley are on leave this week, and Mr. Fisher now works for the sheriff’s office in neighboring Contra Costa County, Joshi added.
Alameda City Attorney Yibin Shen, who represented the three officers in the civil suit, said in an email that his office agrees with previous investigations and that “all investigations have shown that the evidence in this case is “We have concluded that this does not support criminal liability.”
The charges come amid growing national scrutiny of officers’ deadly restraint tactics and lack of accountability after these killings. At least 22 people died from face-down restraints by police between 2016 and 2022, according to a recent analysis by the California Reporting Project, California Newsroom, and the Guardian.
