The city of Alameda on Tuesday released body camera footage of an April 19 incident in which a young Oakland man died after police officers pinned him to the ground while attempting to handcuff him.
Mario Gonzalez, 26, stopped breathing in Alameda police custody after what police described as a “scuffle” with officers in a small park near the city’s Park Street corridor, according to a statement released by the Alameda Police Department on April 20. Police claimed Gonzalez “appeared to be under the influence and a suspect in a possible theft,” and experienced a “medical emergency” after officers tried to place his hands behind his back. Gonzalez was transported by Alameda Fire Department personnel to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Gonzalez’s family, who viewed the video footage before it was released publicly, accused the police of using excessive force, escalating a situation they called entirely avoidable.
“Yesterday, my family and I saw the footage and we know what really happened. Alameda police officers murdered my brother Mario,” said Gerardo Gonzalez, Mario’s youngest sibling, at a Tuesday press conference and rally outside of the Alameda Police Department, shortly before the video was publicly released. “My mother was heartbroken to see Mario’s last moments,” he added. “It was painful to watch the violence and disregard for his humanity. The police killed my brother in the same manner that they killed George Floyd.”
The three officers involved in the incident have been placed on paid administrative leave, per standard procedure, the Alameda Police Department said.
“The City of Alameda is committed to full transparency and accountability in the aftermath of Mr. Gonzalezâs death,” the city said in a statement Tuesday, announcing the release of the video. It noted that separate investigations into the incident have been initiated, including criminal investigations by the Alameda County Sheriffâs Department and Alameda County District Attorneyâs Office, and an independent outside investigation by a private law firm hired by the city.
Due to its graphic nature, and out of consideration for our communities, KQED is not embedding the video. For those who wish to watch it in full, it is available here.
In the nearly hourlong video, which shows footage from two different police body cameras filmed from different angles, two officers are seen approaching Gonzalez, who is standing alone in the small park next to what appear to be two Walgreens shopping baskets.
Officers were responding to 911 calls also included in the video, one from a neighbor who reports a man in his front yard âtalking to himselfâ and ânot making any senseâ who had been there for about 30 minutes. “He’s not doing anything wrong, he’s just scaring my wife,” the neighbor says. A second 911 caller reports a man at the same location who appears to be breaking security tags off of alcohol bottles.
The officers question Gonzalez about what he’s doing in the park, and ask for his ID. Gonzalez, who is very calm but slightly fidgety, mumbles several largely incoherent responses and does not appear to be fully lucid.
When asked if he lives in Alameda, Gonzalez says, “I haven’t gotten a house yet” and briefly puts one hand in his pocket. The officers tell him to take his hands out of his pockets before approaching him. Without telling him he is under arrest, each officer grabs one of Gonzalez’s arms and proceeds to put his hands behind his back. When he bends over and resists being handcuffed, one officer says, “Please stop resisting us, OK? Don’t fight us.”
Gonzalez can be heard saying, “It’s not that, there’s something else,” and tells them to stop.
At one point, while the officers are still trying to get Gonzalez’s hands behind his back, one of them says, “I think we talked before, Mario. This is all coming back to me now.”
As Gonzalez continues to resist being handcuffed, the two officers throw him onto the wood chip-covered ground of a neighboring property and pin him down face-first, pressing their elbows and knees into what looks like his back. While they attempt to subdue him, Gonzalez keeps grunting and briefly shouting, although his voice is now muffled.
“I think you just had too much to drink today, that’s all,” one of the officers says.
The two officers continue pressing him down to the ground, with at least one of them putting his knee into Gonzalez’s back.
“He’s lifting my whole body weight up,” the officer says.
Gonzalez remains pinned face-first to the ground for roughly five minutes, his protestations becoming increasingly desperate and weak, at which point he appears to lose consciousness.
One of the officers tells the other to not put any weight on Gonzalez’s chest.
“He’s going unresponsive,” the other officers says, and gets off of him.
About 30 seconds later, the officers roll Gonzalez over, check for a pulse, try removing his jacket and administering CPR. Roughly one minute later, they remove his handcuffs and continue performing CPR, repeatedly shouting for him to wake up, as more officers and EMTs arrive.
“He went from combative to non-responsive almost immediately and then we started compressions,” one of the officers tells an EMT from the Alameda Fire Department, before Gonzalez is lifted into an ambulance and brought to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Gonzalez’s family members and supporters say the footage points to clear culpability on the part of the officers.
“The footage shows officers on top of Mario while he was face down on the ground,” his brother Gerardo said at Tuesday’s press conference. “They had their weight on his head and his back. He was complying and they continued to bring him down with their weight. Everything we saw in that video was unnecessary and unprofessional, and it took a minuscule event and made it fatal.
The video, Gerardo said, shows Mario sitting in the park “and not bothering anyone,” and at no point was he out of control.
“They could have asked him to call his family and we would have come and picked him up,” he said. “There was no reason to detain him, let alone kill him. The APD took a calm situation and made a fatal.”
Gonzalez leaves behind a 4-year-old son. He was also the main caretaker of his 22-year-old autistic brother, his family said.
âThe footage shows what we already knew,â Edith Arenales, Gonzalez’s mother, added in Spanish. âMario was a kind man and level headed. There was a way to deal with this situation without killing my son.â
The family and activists are demanding an independent investigation into Gonzalez’s death, and have hired Haddad & Sherwin LLP civil rights trial attorneys, they said.
âWe have the police investigating the police,â said George Galvis of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, in a statement Tuesday. “DA OâMalley has only brought charges in an officer involved shooting once in her entire career. This company is working for the City, being spoon fed information by the City, and will no doubt come to a conclusion that is in the Cityâs best interests. Thatâs why the family has called for an outside, independent investigation, led by their lawyers.â
The Alameda Police Department came under fire last May for use of heavy-handed tactics following the release of a video showing officers pinning a middle-aged Black man to the ground and handcuffing him, after he had been seen dancing in the street near his house. The police chief, who was sharply criticized for his response to the incident, announced his retirement several months later.
And in 2018, a 40-year-old navy veteran died eight days after Alameda police arrested him, pinning him to the ground on his stomach and tasing him multiple times. Last year, the city agreed to pay the man’s mother $250,000 as part of a settlement.
This story includes additional reporting from KQED’s Beth LaBerge.
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