HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A medical examiner has confirmed that 28-year-old Irvo Otieno was suffocated to death, and the facts behind his death come as no shock to his family’s attorneys.
“You would have seen from the video the pressure that the officers were placing on Irvo and not permitting him to move,” Mark Krudys, the attorney for Otieno’s family, told 8News.
Krudys explained how the combination of Otieno’s treatment by Henrico Deputies and Central State Hospital staff led to his death.
“It was clear that if there wasn’t any struggle, that he was just gasping for air,” Krudys said.
In a March 15 court appearance, Dinwiddie Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Baskerville explained Oteino’s preliminary cause of death as asphyxiation — more commonly known as suffocation — and the manner of death was homicide.
Cause of death refers to the injury or disease that led to the death of a person, while manner of death refers to the circumstances around a death, according to the Washington, D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Krudys says the medical examiner has now confirmed to him that suffocation is Otieno’s official cause of death.
“They found that the cause of death was positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints,” Krudys said.
It was also confirmed that Otieno’s official manner of death was homicide.
Otieno’s cause and manner of death was confirmed exactly one month after he was taken into custody by Henrico police on March 3. Since then, surveillance video has revealed his March 6 transport by seven Henrico deputies from Henrico Jail West to Central State Hospital, where he later died.
Now that a medical examiner has confirmed an official cause of death, Krudys says he and Ben Crump, another attorney for Otieno’s family, will be taking a deeper look into how law enforcement handled the mental health situation that first led to Otieno being taken into custody.
“One of the things we are going to get to the bottom of (…) were these officers sufficiently trained with regard to this form of risk,” Krudys said.
Oteino’s final autopsy report has not released. According to Krudys, there is also additional surveillance footage in this case that has not been released.
