Three law enforcement officers in the San Francisco Bay Area were charged Thursday in the 2021 death of a 26-year-old Latino father in police custody. Two years ago, prosecutors in Alameda County chose not to prosecute the officers, but they changed course this week after a new district attorney took office and a new autopsy report revealed more information about the death.
Eric McKinley, James Fisher and Cameron Leahy were each charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Mario Gonzalez. Leahy and McKinley work for the Alameda Police Department, and Fisher was with the APD at the time but is now a Contra Costa County sheriff’s deputy, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
On April 19, 2021, police received calls that a man was “acting strangely” and was “talking to himself,” according to a report from former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley. When officers approached Gonzalez, he was alone in a park and there were alcohol bottles nearby. He spoke with officers for close to nine minutes, according to body camera footage later released by the police department.
The officers then put Gonzalez’s hands behind his back and put him on the ground face-down. At least one officer knelt on his back, the footage shows.
Police initially stated that Gonzalez died at the hospital, but the video footage shows he stopped breathing during the arrest. One officer can be heard in the video saying Gonzalez had no pulse. Police initially described their interaction with Gonzalez as a “scuffle” while they tried to detain him.
The charges were filed as Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is reexamining cases of officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths. The office said it is investigating seven other cases.
The September 2021 report on the initial autopsy referred to the death as a homicide but also cited the “toxic effects of methamphetamine” combined with the “physiologic stress of altercation and restraint,” obesity and alcoholism, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into possible misconduct by the three officers, but they were cleared in April 2022. The next year, after Price’s election in November 2022, the Public Accountability Unit of the DA’s office reopened and reexamined the case.
A second autopsy determined that Gonzalez’s death was caused by “restraint asphyxiation.”
HuffPost reached out to attorneys representing the three officers but had not received a response as of Friday afternoon.
Alison Berry Wilkinson, an attorney who represented the three officers, told local news station KQED-TV that the prosecution is politically motivated.
“The District Attorney waited until the 11th hour before the statute of limitations was set to expire to bring these charges just days after it was confirmed she would face recall,” Wilkinson said. “There is no new evidence.
The city agreed in December to pay a settlement of $11 million to Gonzalez’s son, as well as an amount to his mother, to resolve two civil lawsuits filed against the city.
