A Navy veteran who went through an episode of paranoia has died after a Northern California police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, his family said Tuesday. Angelo Quinto’s family called police on Dec. 23 because the 30-year-old had a mental health crisis and needed help.
His family says a respondent knelt at Quinto’s neck for almost five minutes while another officer restrained his legs. Quinto lost consciousness and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died three days later.
“He said, ‘Please do not kill me. Please do not kill me’, as they put him on the ground. They handcuffed him and one officer put his knee on the back of his neck the whole time. when I was in the room, ”said Quinto’s mother, Cassandra Quinto-Collins.
Cassandra Quinto-Collins / AP
Quinto-Collins said she hugged her son and that he was calm when officers arrived at their home in Antioch, 45 miles east of San Francisco.
“I trusted the police because I thought they knew what they were doing, but he was actually passive and visibly not dangerous. It was absolutely unnecessary what they were doing to him,” she said.
A video recorded by Quinto-Collins shows her son being listless, with a bloodied face and his hands cuffed behind his back. According to her, she started recording after seeing her son’s eyes roll into his head.
The family filed a legal claim against the Antioch Police Department last week, giving the department 45 days to respond. Eventually, the family will file a federal lawsuit, Quintos’ attorney John Burris said.
“I refer to it as the George Floyd technique, that’s what ripped life out of him, and it can not be a legal technique,” Burris said. “We see not only violations of his civil rights, but also violations of the rights of his mother and sister, who saw what happened to him.”
Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25 in Minneapolis after a police officer presses his knee against Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed and said he could not breathe.
Burris said there were other issues with the officers’ response, including how they did not try to weaken and first spoke to Quinto, and how they could not turn on their cameras and the camera in their patrol car.
Burris did not disclose a cause of death and an independent autopsy is pending.
The Antioch Police Department on Tuesday did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The department only informed the public about Quinto’s death on January 25 when he answered inquiries through the East Bay Times.
After the legal claim was filed on Thursday, Lieutenant Tarra Mendes, police in Antioch, told the newspaper that “the investigation is still ongoing. We want it to be completed. Once it is completed, we will provide more information to the can provide to the public. “
Quinto, who was born in the Philippines, was honorably discharged from the navy in 2019 due to a food allergy, his sister, Bella Collins, said.
He suffered from depression for most of his life, but his behavior changed after an apparent assault in early 2020, when he woke up in a hospital without remembering what had happened and with stitches and serious injuries. After that, he started having episodes of paranoia and anxiety, she said.
Collins, 18, said she now regrets calling the police after she could hurt her brother, who was hugging her and their mother tightly before the police arrived, hurting their mother.
‘I asked the detectives if there was another number I needed to call, and they told me it was not and that I had done the right thing. But at the moment I can tell you that the real thing would not have killed my brother, ‘she said.