10 Virginia deputies face murder charges in a Black man's death at a mental hospital
Ten law enforcement officers have been charged with second-degree murder over the death of a Black man at a state psychiatric hospital last week, according to a Virginia prosecutor.
Irvo Noel Otieno, 28, was taken into emergency custody on March 3 after experiencing mental health distress.
He spent three days in a local jail in Henrico County, south of Richmond, Va., where his family's lawyer says he was "brutalized" by officers — including being pepper sprayed, stripped naked and deprived of his medications — before being transferred to Central State Hospital, a state-run mental facility in Dinwiddie County.
Otieno was restrained with handcuffs and leg shackles throughout the hospital intake process, according to Dinwiddie County Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill. In court on Wednesday, she said videos show that seven sheriff's deputies held him on the ground for some 12 minutes.
