Bay Area Police, Did the Unthinkable Norm Pinned a Man Down for Four Minutes
How a Possible Mental or Inebriate Unarmed Man Meets an Untimely Death
Every single day, someone of color dies at the hand of the police somewhere in this Country and these are the few that hit the headlines. Without any doubt there is more than meets the eye but of late more and more are coming to the light exposing the magnitude of police brutality, mainly against all people of color. Qualified immunity has become a catch all for bad cops and has been a catalyst in creating an atmosphere that is way out of control which is why many are calling for defunding the police or police reform. The bottom line is that something needs to be done like yesterday before America turns into the wild wild west.
Again, we see in the Bay Area, the Alameda police body camera video footage shows Alameda police officers attempting to arrest Mario Gonzalez, a 26-year-old Latino man, on April 19, that ended in his death. Nowadays of late, too many times when the police goes to a community of color, death happens, even when the police are not facing danger. The police officers seem to be trained to kill first and think second. They are equipped with all types of arsenals, from guns, taser, sprays, handcuffs, etc. Why make the gun the first choice to subdue? Also, when someone is handcuffed, is it necessary to throw the person to the ground or put your body parts on their body parts?
Mario Gonzalez via the police body-camera video showed how one the police officers appeared to put a knee on Mario’s back for four minutes as he struggled to breath and shortly thereafter died. Didn’t the George Floyd’s Trial recent guilty verdict against Officer Chauvin teach them anything at all about putting their body parts on a suspect? Are they not listening or do they not care or do they rest under the umbrella of qualified immunity, knowing that their actions are being videotaped? The police was called not because Mario Gonzalez posed imminent threat to the officers but due to his public behavior as he was not bothering anyone, just a public nuisance of sort and an earlier possible theft, in a local park.
When the police arrived, the man appeared to be tweaking which is not against the law and the police was call because he scared someone’s wife. I wondered if the scared lady was in the park or was she viewing from her home? Either way, why call the police? This man was minding his own business in a public park, now his life has been taken. For what? Absolutely nothing. A second caller to the police advised that the man had a Walgreens basket with alcohol and it looked like he was breaking off the security tags and he had been loitering for half an hour. Isn’t it a public park? Public means anyone. Why not wait and see if the man does something wrong before calling the police? Blood is not only on the police hands but these two callers. Haven’t these callers been listening to the news lately, with all the deaths at the hands of the police and mostly unprovoked like Mr. Gonzalez.
The Northern California sheriff’s deputy advised there will be an intensive inquiry. Let’s hope this will be an external inquiry because the internal inquiry often are biased in favor of the police’s conduct. Also, the said sheriff advised that it was rare that a non-threatening, non-belligerent person ends up dying. Well, facts around the Country proves otherwise but at least he is moving forward to find the truth of what happened in a case where there was no threat to the officers.
How do you go from conversating to handcuffing to knee on the back to death without probable cause? Not having identification doesn’t justify handcuffing someone. Putting handcuffs on someone who was minding their business would cause agitation. These cops need to put themselves in other people shoes. As they asked Mr. Gonzalez, all kinds of questions regarding his age, name and etc, while handcuffing him simultaneously would make anyone not want to cooperate. Everyone of late, especially people of color, fears when the police comes near in general because most of these police smells of death.
While pinned and handcuffed on the ground, facedown on some wood chips, Mr. Gonzalez, could be heard shouting and grunting while these officers use their body weight to subdue him as one of the officer put an elbow on his neck and a knee on Mario’s shoulder for four minutes. Sounds like a human straight jacket.
Prior to Mario going unresponsive these police officers conversated about how they were positioned on this man, then rolled him over to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation as he was pronounced dead at a hospital.
As usual, these three officers, James Fisher, Cameron Leahy and Eric McKinley were placed on paid leave pending investigation. One veteran and two newbies with the police force should be sued to pay for their action. They are all contributors to Mr. Gonzalez’s death while their actions were a violation of one’s human rights.
In conclusion, we the people must demand for accountability from the people we put in office, we must demand that the police union stop shielding bad behavior officers, we must demand transparency, we must demand better law enforcement training, we must demand better supervision over ill behaved cops, we must demand that excessive force without provocation to cease, and we must demand as a civil servant all must live up to their creed and oath, to protect and serve all citizens and we must demand immediate release of the police body camera video.
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