The family of a Northern California navy veteran who died while being restrained by police filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday, KTVU reports.
Thirty-year-old Angelo Quinto died in the hospital after an encounter with Antioch Police. Police had been called to Quinto’s family home on December 23 after reports a person was experiencing a mental health crisis.
Quinto’s younger sister, Bella, is now suing the city of Antioch, its police chief and four officers in federal court, Daily Mail reports.
The lawsuit states that when officers arrived Quinto’s mother was hugging him, and the veteran appeared calm. The officers separated the two. According to the lawsuit, an officer knelt on Quinto’s neck for five minutes.
Quinto’s mother captured a video that shows her son bloodied and listless. She began recording the video after his eyes rolled back into his head.
Quinto was taken to the hospital. Attorneys representing the family say police falsely told paramedics he was high on methamphetamine. An independent autopsy showed he had no drugs in his system.
Quinto died three days after being taken to the hospital. The family’s attorneys say the independent autopsy shows his eyes had petechial hemorrhaging, a sign of asphyxia, KTVU reports.
“It was heartbreaking for Angelo’s mother and sister to watch Angelo’s life being drained from him when de-escalation was the appropriate police action,” Bay Area civil rights attorney John Burris said at a press conference held Monday, according to KTVU.
Quinto’s family spoke briefly at the press conference.
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him and nobody, nobody deserves that,” his sister Bella said, according to ABC 7.
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