PLEASANTON, Calif. (AP) - Police body camera footage shows a man restrained by a half-dozen police officers cry “you’re suffocating me!” before he died, it was reported Wednesday.
Video of the arrest of Jacob Bauer, 38, of Pleasanton was released in an ongoing wrongful death lawsuit filed by Bauer’s family. It was published by the Bay Area News Group.
In a video statement obtained by the news group, Bauer’s mother, Rose Bauer, said her son died at the hands of “killers who hide behind badges.”
Bauer died on Aug. 1, 2018. Officers were called to a grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area city. His mother said he had drunk several bottles of soda and was talking to himself. He was asked to leave and walked down the street before police approached him.
In court filings, attorneys for the city said Bauer slammed a shopping cart to the ground and that the manager called police to report that he was “acting deranged,” the Bay Area News Group reported.
The family had met with police four times in the weeks and days before his death, reporting that Bauer was mentally ill but was harmless and relatives were seeking help for him because they feared he might die if there was a confrontation with police, the news group reported.
“We were assured no harm would come to Jacob because they are highly trained in de-escalation tactics,” his mother said in her video statement.
Bauer’s mother said her son wasn’t combative to police officers but at one point stopped talking to them and stared off into the distance before officers grabbed him and tried to put him in handcuffs.
Police have said Bauer bit and scratched officers while resisting them.
Police camera footage showed officers repeatedly telling Bauer to calm down and Bauer repeatedly saying: “you’ve got to get off me.” Officers were shown restraining his hands and legs, shocking him with stun guns as he lay on the ground and putting a “spit mask” over his head. He also was shown wearing a restraining harness.
At another point, Bauer told officers that he couldn’t breathe.
“No, you can breathe, that’s why you’re yelling still, OK?” an officer said. “Just try and relax.”
Arriving paramedics gave Bauer a sedative but then were refused access to him for eight minutes, according to an Alameda County coroner’s report.
At some point, he stopped breathing, couldn’t be revived, and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Bauer died of methamphetamine toxicity but “probably mechanical asphyxia” from being restrained played a role in his death, along with morbid obesity and a heart problem, the coroner concluded.
The county district attorney’s office cleared the officers of wrongdoing, finding they used reasonable force.
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