The Alameda Police ( California, USA ) published a video late Tuesday in which it is observed the arrest of Mario González, a 26-year-old Hispanic on whom an agent placed his knee when he was on the ground to immobilize him and that he passed away shortly after.
The incident took place on April 19 in this town in the San Francisco Bay area, when authorities received the alert that González was loitering near a park in an apparent state of intoxication and in the area where he had been reported a robbery at a liquor store.
In the video, which lasts an hour and is recorded by the camera incorporated by the police themselves, three agents are seen talking for several minutes with González, who is calm, but acts erratically and has two baskets next to his store full of liquor bottles.
After 11 minutes of chatting and asking for identification, to which González replies that his name is Mario, two agents grab him by the arms to handcuff him, but he resists, and after a struggle, he ends up face down on the ground, although in the video he does not it is appreciated if it falls or if it is pushed.
Once on the ground, at least one officer presses González’s back and shoulder several times with his knee while another police officer places the wives. It is then that he begins to complain and scream, and you can see how he is breathing with difficulty, although he continues to answer the agents’ questions.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink, that’s all,” one of the policemen then tells him, while another asks him to calm down. Just moments after an agent told his colleagues that they were not applying “weight on his chest,” González lost consciousness, after which the policemen turned him on his back and tried to revive him. González died shortly after at the hospital.
After the video was published, the relatives of the deceased in a press conference accused the Police of having “murdered” González and of having lied about what happened, for which they asked that the three agents involved, identified by the police, be fired. institutions like James Fisher, Eric McKinley, and Cameron Leahy.
“On the morning of April 19, the Alameda police killed our dear Mario,” reads a page on the GoFundMe crowdfunding platform created by Gerardo, Mario’s brother, to cover funeral expenses. Seeing the body camera footage was “once again traumatic and heartbreaking” and “reaffirmed our fight for justice for Mario,” Gerardo wrote. The three police officers are on leave with pay while the incident is investigated, municipal authorities said.
This death comes at a time of great tension in the United States due to the deaths of members of ethnic minorities at the hands of the Police, and only days after the jury of a Minneapolis court issued its ruling against the former white agent Derek Chauvin, whom he found guilty of three counts for the murder by suffocation of African American George Floyd in May 2020. Floyd’s death sparked a wave of social protests and civil unrest across the country.
Other recent abuse cases
– Adam Toledo: In mid-April, the case of the death of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old young man who died after being shot by an agent in Chicago, became known. According to the images, Toledo had his arms raised when he turned around and faced the police officer who was chasing him, as seen in the video recorded by a police camera and released by the agency that is in charge of investigating cases of the use of lethal force
– Daunte Wright: The death of African-American Daunte Wright during a traffic stop near Minneapolis (Minnesota, USA) was “accidental” after a police officer mistook a “taser” for his pistol, Police Chief Tim Ganno said Monday. According to Ganno, the White Police who shot Wright wanted to use a stun gun known as a “Taser” to immobilize him, but got confused and fired with their firearm.
– George Floyd: The Floyd case is the most iconic in recent US history, with his death at the hands of an agent sparking an unprecedented wave of protests across the country. Police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd, was recently found guilty by a judge.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
