Alameda authorities have released the bodycam footage depicting cops kneeling on an intoxicated Latino man’s back until he passed away on April 19.
The bodycam revealed a different story from what the police department had told Mario Gonzalez’s family, claiming he suffered a “medical emergency” while being arrested.
“What I saw was different from what I was told,” the 26-year-old’s brother said. “The medical emergency was because they were on his back while he was lying on the ground. It was brought by officers on top of his head.”
The video shows Mario, slightly disoriented, being approached by officers in Pocket Park. They questioned him for nine minutes and he was clearly calm.
But Mario failed to show his ID and the cops tried to cuff his arms behind his back then took him down to the ground, without any resistance sign from him.
The officer initially pinned Mario to the ground with his elbow on Mario’s neck and his knee on the suspect’s back before he moved it to his neck for five minutes.
A second officer joins him getting on Mario’s back as a third asks them to roll him on his side, to which one replied: “I don’t wanna lose what I got, man.”
Mario, who left behind a 4-year-old son, stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at a hospital. His family insists the 250lbs construction worker was otherwise healthy.
“Alameda Police officers murdered my brother Mario,” the grieving dad said. “He was not bothering anyone; at no point was he violent. Everything we saw was unnecessary. APD took a calm situation and made it fatal. Police killed my brother in the same manner that they killed George Floyd.”
