News / Human Rights

Video shows inmate's death at hands of deputies in Denver jail

Tuesday, 26 January 2016 3:09 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 26 January 2016 3:11 AM ]

Michael Marshall is seen before death at a Denver jail.

A video has been released showing a homeless man who died face-down while being restrained by five deputies in a Denver jail.

The footage, which lasts more than 45 minutes, was disclosed after Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said last week that the officers responsible for Michael Marshall’s death will not be charged.

“There is no evidence suggesting any force was used for the purpose of harming Mr. Marshall,” Morrissey said.

However, a report by a medical examiner indicates that the death of the 50-year-old man was caused by “complications of positional asphyxia, to include aspiration pneumonia, due to being physically restrained by law enforcement during an acute psychotic episode.”

The video shows the man refuses to sit down after he gets up from a bench with three deputies tackling him. He is then held to the floor for some 13 minutes before they put him into a restraining chair.

Nurses then realized that the man was not breathing, so they performed CPR to no avail and he died at a local hospital.

“He didn’t try to hurt anyone. He wasn’t threatening,” his niece, Natalia Marshall, told AP. “And for them to forcefully restrain him the way they did and brutally murder him just because of the fact that he was trespassing? Is beyond my thoughts.”

US police are under harsh criticism over the use of excessive force against Americans especially people of color.

Several black men and women have died either in police custody or in officer-involved shootings in recent months.

In a similar incident, 43-year-old Eric Garner, an unarmed African-American man, died last year after being put in a white police officer's chokehold in New York City.

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