DINWIDDIE, Va. (CN) — The mother of Irvo Otieno, a Black man smothered at a Virginia hospital, spoke out Monday about her displeasure with the dismissal of charges for now against five of the eight suspects.
"We demand justice," Otieno's mother Caroline Ouko said. "And nothing less."
A judge Sunday granted Commonwealth Attorney Amanda Mann's nolle prosequi motion to dismiss second-degree murder charges against five of the seven deputies involved. Trials will commence for former Henrico sheriff's deputies Brandon Rodgers and Kaiyell Sanders, as well as former Central State Hospital employee Wavie Jones.
Mann is the third prosecutor on the case after being elected last November. 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 for her decision to charge all 10 people involved with second-degree murder.
After receiving a mental health call, the Henrico County police placed Otieno under emergency custody on March 3, 2023. Police denied access to Ouko when they took her son to a hospital in Henrico. After a struggle at the hospital, police took Otieno to jail.
The Henrico County Sheriff's Office took Otieno to Central State Hospital around 4 p.m. on March 6, and state police were called to investigate his death just hours later around 7:30 p.m.
The 28-year-old Black man's death caused a national outcry and calls for mental health and police reform after a video circulated of police and hospital staff forcefully dragging Otieno into a room, restraining him with handcuffs and leg irons and pinning him to the ground for over 11 minutes. A Virginia medical examiner determined homicide caused by positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints as the cause of Otieno's death.
Attorney Mark Krudys of the Kurdys Law Firm and prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump secured an $8.5 million civil settlement this past September. Any justice for the criminal charges rests with Mann, the prosecutor.
With less than a month until the first of eight separate second-degree murder trials were slated to begin, Mann unsuccessfully tried to restructure the order of the trials according to what cases she found most compelling. After Dinwiddie Circuit Judge Joseph Teefey denied the motion, Mann moved to dismiss the charges. The nolle prosequi motion allows her to bring the charges back later.
Crump, Krudys, and Ouko told reporters that Mann's motion was a mistake. They claimed the video evidence was more than enough to convict all involved.
"The only thing that makes it a complicated case is that the police killed a Black man," Crump said via a video stream. "These charges are ready to go be prosecuted. Don't deny Miss Caroline justice that she deserves."
Crump condemned the slow-moving process that is now further delayed. Crump has represented the families of other Black men killed by police, including Michael Brown, Keenan Anderson, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin.
"We are quick to be prosecuted when we are accused of a crime," Crump said of Black people. "However, when we are the victims of crimes by the authorities, there seems to be delay, delay, delay."
The trio pleaded with the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene in the case.
"The Department of Justice, where are you," an emotional Ouko asked. "It is time for you to bring your boots to Richmond and stand for Irvo."
Ouko made it clear she wouldn't hold her breath for Mann to refile charges against the five dismissed defendants. It will now be up to the state's discretion.
"Discretion can be discriminatory," Ouko said. "What happened to my son is unimaginable."
Following Otieno's death, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a bill titled "Irvo's Law" that gives families and caregivers access to their loved ones in crisis while they're receiving a mental health evaluation in an emergency room.
"Imagine that was your child who had mental health issues," Crump said. "Ask yourself, do those officers deserve to be held to the full extent of the law? If you make the conclusion that if that was your child, it would be warranted, then why is it any different when it's a Black mother's child?"
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