Surveillance video released by a prosecutor Tuesday shows Irvo Otieno being pinned to the floor by multiple security officers at a Virginia state mental health facility in the moments leading up to his death earlier this month.
Seven sheriff deputies and three medical staff are charged with second-degree murder in the black man’s death.
A grand jury on Tuesday indicted the 10 people accused in the case.
The prosecutor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, released video of the incident to the public on Tuesday.
“They smothered him to death.”
In a hearing last week for the charges against the deputies, Baskervill told the court
The footage is from surveillance cameras at Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia.
The newly released video begins as Otieno, bound by his hands and feet, is forcibly taken into a room and dragged into an upright seated position on the floor with his back against a chair.
Ten minutes later, after Otieno has turned onto his side with three people holding him, his body jerks, and five more deputies and workers move to pin Otieno to the floor.
A clear view of Otieno is blocked in much of the video, but one deputy appears to be lying across Otieno for most of the incident as he is forced onto his stomach.
Eventually, Otieno is rolled onto his back, where several deputies appear to be restraining him with their knees. One deputy holds Otieno’s head still by grabbing his braided hair.
After 12 minutes of Otieno being pinned to the ground, one deputy can be seen shaking Otieno’s hair and attempting to take a neck pulse, but Otieno is unresponsive. Three more minutes pass before CPR begins, with Otieno’s limbs still shackled.
Medical workers from the hospital are seen converging on the room as CPR continues for nearly an hour. After he is pronounced dead, Otieno is covered in a white sheet, still lying on the floor, his body briefly left alone in the room.
MrOtieno was initially arrested on 3 March as the suspect in a possible burglary, a police news release said.
