SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A jury must decide if California police officers used excessive force when they restrained a man who later died, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin handed a mixed bag on summary judgment motions from both the San Francisco Bay Area city of Antioch and the family of a 30-year-old man who died after being held facedown by police officers James Perkinson, Arturo Becerra, Daniel Hopwood and Nicholas Shipilo.
Maria Cassandra Quinto-Collins filed a federal civil rights action following the December 2020 death of her son Angelo, three days after being restrained by the police officers in Quinto-Collins' bedroom. Quinto-Collins says that Quinto, as recorded on cellphone audio and video, was face down and silent while being restrained when the officers turned him over and found his face purple and bleeding.
Quinto died in the hospital three days later. A doctor who contracts with the county coroner testified that the death was caused by “excited delirium syndrome due to acute drug toxicity with disturbances” and “physical exertion.”
Martinez-Olguin on Monday granted qualified immunity to the officers on most of the claims, finding they acted within the law when they handcuffed and restrained Quinto. However, she found genuine questions of material fact regarding the amount of force the officers used which preclude summary judgment for either party.
“It is for the jury to decide whether or not Angelo was resisting and whether the officers used reasonable force when they put Angelo on his stomach, handcuffed, and applied weight to his upper body and legs,” Martinez-Olguin said in her 28-page order. “As defendants concede, there are significant disputes about the circumstances of the restraint. Those factual disputes preclude a finding that plaintiffs fail to satisfy the elements of their Bane Act claim. A reasonable jury could find that Angelo did not pose a threat to the officers and was not resisting, and from there, reach the conclusion that officers acted with reckless disregard.”
Martinez-Olguin found the plaintiffs failed to show the officers hadn't promptly sought medical attention for Quinto. and granted summary judgment to the officers on that claim.
The judge said that she will issue a separate order on the plaintiffs’ cross-motion for summary judgment on causation and motions to exclude evidence.
Attorneys for the city did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case is set for a jury trial in October. The plaintiffs’ attorney John Burris said Monday that he considers this a victory, despite the rulings in the officers' favor.
“The excessive force and the wrongful death under state statutes survived and will go forward, and that is the essence of the case,” Burris said.
Burris represents at least 17 people in several other civil rights cases underway against the police department in Antioch —including a state probe into dozens of text messages in Antioch police officers' group chats, many containing racist and homophobic slurs, between 2019 and 2022. He said the Quinto case presents another opportunity to look at the department and also chip away at “excited delirium.” The American Medical Association does not support the “excited delirium” diagnosis, saying it is often used for “justification for excessive police force, disproportionately cited in cases where Black men die in law enforcement custody.” Physicians for Human Rights says the term “cannot be disentangled from its racist and unscientific origins.”
“It’s just another example of a case of mistreatment by the police department,” Burris said. “In our view, the death should not have occurred. There should have been attention given to the fact that he was mentally impaired and suffering from paranoia.”
Burris pointed to the legislation changes driven by Quinto’s family, including to separate sheriff and coroner’s offices in California. Quinto’s family also ordered a private autopsy from a doctor who found petechial hemorrhaging in Quinto’s eyes — a sign of asphyxiation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. They said in court filings that the county’s contracted doctor in his autopsy report downplayed the possibility that weight on Quinto’s back played a role in his death.
Contra Costa County Sheriff-Coroner David Livingston still holds coroner’s inquests asking juries to determine whether deaths involving police are due to accident, suicide, natural causes or homicide — a process which many jurisdictions have abandoned.
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