By Chantal Da Silva -
NBC News
Video from a surveillance camera captured the final moments of the life of Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old black man whose death on March 6 at a Virginia hospital led to criminal charges being filed against seven police officers and three medical workers.
The footage, taken before his death at Virginia's Central State Hospital, shows officers and paramedics appearing to crowd around the young man in the medical center's admissions room, where he had been transferred from a county jail.
They pounce on Otieno, who appears to be handcuffed and shackled on his ankles, and move him against a table before placing him face down to immobilize him to the ground, until he stops moving, according to the video advanced by The Washington Post.
At any given time there are up to 10 sheriff's deputies around the young man on the ground, and others nearby, to the point that it is difficult to make out on the footage what is happening and what they are doing to him.
Otieno was held in this way for 11 minutes, until it was observed that he was no longer moving, according to the newspaper, which obtained an 11-minute video and published a nine-minute excerpt, without sound.
Minutes after the agents move away from the young man's immobile body, around 4:40 in the afternoon, workers can be seen giving him a cardiac chest massage and using a defibrillator;
At 5:48 p.m., a health worker covers the body with a white blanket, according to the time stamps included in the published video.
Irvo Otieno, right, with his mother and brother.
Ben Crump Law / AFP - Getty Images
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What is said during the incident is not known from the video because it has no sound, but prosecutors handling the case say investigators were told Otieno had become combative during the hospital admission process.
The authorities had planned to publish the video on Tuesday, but the lawyers for two of the defendants prevented it, arguing that it could influence the jury and not guarantee a fair trial.
The Washington Post obtained a copy, which could not be verified by NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo.
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Otieno's family and their lawyers viewed the footage last week.
His mother, Caroline Ouko, said he had been "treated like a dog, worse than a dog." "He was murdered.
They suffocated my baby until he was breathless.
They murdered my baby," she lamented.
"It is an example of the inhumanity with which law enforcement treats people experiencing a mental health crisis as criminals, instead of treating them as people who need help," attorney Ben Crump told reporters.
“You can see they are using all their strength, every part of their back is being pushed down with absolute brutality,” said Mark Krudys, a lawyer for Otieno's family.
Four of the sheriff's deputies weighed at least 250 pounds (113 kilograms), and one of the men weighed in at 320 pounds (145 kilograms), according to court documents.
The Virginia District Attorney's Office charged seven Henrico County sheriff's deputies and three hospital staff with second-degree murder last week.
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The officers charged are Randy Joseph Boyer, Dwayne Alan Bramble, Jermaine Lavar Branch, Bradley Thomas Disse, Tabitha Renee Levere, Brandon Edwards Rodgers, and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, according to the Dinwiddie County District Attorney's Office.
Disse's attorney, Edward K. Nickel, said his client was looking forward to defending himself.
"The charges were initiated by criminal information, an extraordinarily unusual method of initiating the paperwork for an arrest in Virginia," he noted.
"However, the final charges, if any, that our client will face will be determined by the grand jury," he added.
Cary Bowen, who represents Branch, said his client has been in the police for 24 years, and "none of them have reputations as thugs."
The Prosecutor's Office explained that the sheriff's deputies took Otieno to the hospital around 3:58 in the afternoon to be admitted.
Instead, "he died of suffocation by having at least seven people on top of him and holding him down," prosecutor Ann Cabell Baskervill argued at a court hearing last week, according to video of the hearing broadcast by the local NBC station. News in Richmond.
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Otieno was taken into custody March 3 after Henrico police officers responded to a robbery call, the police department said in a statement at the time.
He was placed under an "emergency custody order," which Virginia law allows for mental illness.
Officers later took Otieno to a hospital that has a crisis center.
The police department alleges that Otieno "became physically aggressive towards officers" at the center.
He was transferred to a Sheriff's Office jail, where he was charged with several charges including assault on a law enforcement officer, disorderly conduct at a hospital and vandalism.
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Otieno's family, who has roots in Kenya, have said he was a selfless person who cared about justice and a hip-hop artist capable of writing songs in five minutes.
His brother, Leon Ochieng, described his younger brother's death as a “tragic, senseless and inhuman nightmare”.
“Can someone explain to me why my brother isn't here right now?
Somebody explain to me why my mother can't sleep, she can't eat,” Ochieng said, “We are devastated.”