Medical records state that a man from Virginia asphyxiated to death after being held down for more than ten minutes by hospital employees and officers in what his family termed as torture.

Irvo Otieno’s family’s attorneys claimed that the medical results bore startling resemblances to George Floyd‘s passing almost three years prior. “Irvo was held down and excessively restrained to death, when he should have been provided medical help and compassion. It is tragic that yet another life has been lost to this malicious and deadly restraint technique,” family attorneys Ben Crump and Mark Krudys said in a statement.

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Who was Irvo Otieno?

Irvo Otieno was a 28-year-old man from Virginia who was killed on March 6 while being admitted to a state-run mental health facility. Otieno’s family has said he was in the midst of a mental health breakdown. When he was 4 years old, he left his native Kenya and immigrated to the United States to become a successful hip-hop artist.

Ann Baskervill, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Dinwiddie County, claims that during the hospital’s intake procedure, the staff “smothered him to death.” Otieno was being moved from the county jail, where he had been kept after investigators claim he attacked three policemen while being treated, to Central State Hospital, a state-run mental health center south of Richmond.

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In connection with Otieno’s passing, seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital employees have been convicted of second-degree murder. The medical examiner’s office confirmed that “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints” was the actual reason for his death.

“All must know what they did to my son,” Otieno’s mother, Caroline Ouko said, according to the statement. Ouko said last month that Otieno needed medication because of a mental disorder. Long periods of time would pass during which she “wouldn’t even know something was wrong,” with her child. According to her, sometimes he would “go into some kind of distress and you know he needs to see a doctor.”

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Family attorney Ben Crump said, “The official declaration confirms what all could see in the video. Irvo, while facedown and handcuffed at his wrists and shackled at his ankles, was not permitted to breathe. For over 11 minutes, the ten officer/hospital defendants pushed down hard on every part of Irvo’s body until he was limp and lifeless.”

“We cannot continue to treat the mentally ill with such brutality,” he added.