Caroline Ouko, mother of Irvo Otieno, holds a portrait of her son on Thursday as she walks out of the Dinwiddie County Courthouse with attorney Ben Crump, center left, and her older son, Leon Ochieng. Prosecutors say seven Henrico County deputies held down Otieno for 12 minutes at Central State Hospital while he was shackled and handcuffed, eventually “smothering him to death.”
“A mental health crisis should not be a death sentence,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference the First Baptist Church of South Richmond. “We don’t want anybody else in America whose family is dealing with a mental health crisis to be killed by the very people who are supposed to help them.”
In this image from a Central State Hospital camera, Henrico County sheriff's deputies and other workers are shown with Irvo Otieno on March 6. The image was taken at 4:29 p.m.
Del. Don Scott, a Portsmouth Democrat who moved beyond a past felony conviction to become minority leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, …
Caroline Ouko, mother of Irvo Otieno, holds a portrait of her son on Thursday as she walks out of the Dinwiddie County Courthouse with attorney Ben Crump, center left, and her older son, Leon Ochieng. Prosecutors say seven Henrico County deputies held down Otieno for 12 minutes at Central State Hospital while he was shackled and handcuffed, eventually “smothering him to death.”
