DINWIDDIE, Va. (CN) — To the anger of friends and family, a jury on Thursday acquitted a hospital security guard on charges stemming from the slaying of a mentally ill Black man.
That man, Irvo Otieno, died at Central State Hospital near Petersburg on Mar. 6, 2023, after he was restrained by law enforcement and hospital employees.
“It ended up being, unfortunately, a very kind of racist trope,” Otieno’s friend and family advocate Allan-Charles Chipman said in an interview Friday: “Here’s this big, scary Black man who was a threat.”
“Their defense was … that the defendant had a duty to protect the lives of people whose lives were at threat,” Chipman added. But at no point, he argued, did officials involved in the killing reflect on the fact that Otieno’s life was actually in danger.
Thursday marked the end of the first of three criminal trials in a case that parallels to the infamous police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. A video showed deputies and hospital staff forcefully dragging Otieno into a room, restraining him with handcuffs and leg irons and pinning him to the ground for more than 11 minutes.
After three and half days of a trial, the jury returned a nonguilty verdict for Central State Hospital employee Wavie Jones on Thursday. Prosecutors initially charged Jones with second-degree murder, but the charges were later dropped to involuntary manslaughter.
“Twelve people from this community took 20 minutes to decide that this case is not what it had been told that it is throughout,” attorney Doug Ramseur of the Ram Law Firm, representing Jones, told reporters after the trial.
Otieno suffered a mental health crisis on Mar. 3, 2023. That prompted his mother, Caroline Ouko, to call the police for a wellness check. But according to the police, Otieno became physically combative towards officers while being evaluated at Parham Doctors’ Hospital in Henrico County.
Police took Otieno to Henrico County Jail West on three counts of assault on a law enforcement officer, disorderly conduct in a hospital and vandalism.
The reason for his transfer to Central State Hospital on Mar. 6 remains unclear. Video obtained by Richmond’s CBS affiliate WTVR shows deputies struggling to handcuff Otieno at the Henrico Jail.
“The verdict here today shows us very clearly that those that find themselves in a crisis, like my son, Irvo, have no protection under the law,” Ouko told reporters following the trial.
The defense focused their case on Otieno’s poor physical health, claiming that he died of a sudden cardiac arrest rather than from positional and mechanical asphyxia, as argued by Jennifer Bowers, the Richmond assistant chief medical examiner.
“Mr. Otieno came in with a preexisting heart condition that put him at high risk for someone who then has been off of his medication for weeks, not sleeping for six days, manic, overweight, [and with] high blood pressure,” Ramseur told reporters.
“He puts himself under that kind of stress by constantly resisting against officers, the people who are trying to help him get the help he needs,” he added. “That can trigger a sudden cardiac attack.”
Chipman said the defense also placed blame on Otieno’s mental health, claiming they characterized him as dangerous. Chipman and Otieno met at church, became friends and worked on music together.
The reality of the encounter with authorities, Chipman said, was not as clear-cut as the defense portrayed it.
“The defense, they could just kind of show the highlight reel of kind of the worst instances of his mental health breakdown, but cut out the parts where he’s voluntarily getting to an ambulance or, you know, not resisting,” he said. “And so it set them up to really be able to kind of go on this kind of racist trope of the dangerous Black man that has to be put down for the safety of everyone else.”
Chipman said he wished the prosecution had better explained Otieno’s condition to the jury. Chipman questioned the defense’s assertion that Otieno was somehow a strong enough man to require the force used to subdue him while also being in such poor health that his death was bound to happen.
“He’s a super dangerous, strong, fit, strong man who could overcome a police officer, bench presses this amount,” Chipman said. “But he’s this fragile person that could have a cardiac arrest at any time.”
Chipman said that the case was poorly prosecuted throughout. Chipman and the family had hoped the Justice Department would take over the case.
Amanda Mann, elected last November, is the third prosecutor on the case. The original Dinwiddie County chief prosecutor, Ann Cabell Baskervill, resigned in the summer of 2023 to pursue a master’s degree in Paris. Baskervill received criticism from supporters of police and the hospital employees for her decision to charge all ten people involved with second-degree murder.
“Ms. Baskervill, frankly, made the wrong decision,” Ramseur said. “Let’s remember it’s not just Mr. Jones who was wrongfully charged here.”
Ramseur said Jones had submitted his two weeks’ notice on the day of Otieno’s death. The prosecution attempted to tell the jurors that Jones had a physical altercation with a patient the following day that led to him resigning, but Ramseur successfully objected, according to Chipman. Chipman claims the trial focused on Otieno’s character despite Jones being the one on trial. Ramseur disputes that story.
Ramseur said his client struggled to find work thanks to the charge pending over him.
“His whole life has been ripped upside down, and so he is glad to have a few minutes that he can finally breathe, finally relax and know that he’s gonna be home with his family,” Ramseur said.
Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsel Mark Krudys helped Otieno’s family secure an $8.5 million settlement with the Henrio County police.
According to Chipman and Ramseur, Mann said this was the strongest of the three cases. Two police officers, Kaiyell Sanders and Brandon Rodgers, are slated to stand trial later this fall.
“There’s a lot of concerns with quality and effort of the prosecution,” Chipman said. “I mean, the prosecution spent more time talking with defense attorneys and more effort with defense attorneys to drop charges [and] dismiss charges against people who were involved in the killing.”