Cell Video Shows Man Screaming
By Nick Ashton, Founder, CEO,
Tracometry Group of Companies.
We thank the L.A. Times for this article and bring this to you as an education of what is happening on the streets and courtrooms regarding Excited Delirium Syndrome.
Warning:
explicit language in video.
This
post has been updated. See below for details.
Two new
videos from a cellphone showing Kern County deputies restraining a screaming
David Sal Silva and then them seemingly trying to revive him were released by
an attorney for witnesses who recorded the confrontation that resulted in the
father of four's death.
ABC23 on Monday posted one video
showing deputies positioned over a screaming Silva, seemingly controlling his
movements, and a second one of them trying to revive him.
Silva died
May 8 about an hour after the altercation, during which authorities say Kern
County sheriff's deputies wielded batons to control Silva. The footage made
public Monday does not show any of the baton strikes. A grainy security surveillance
video obtained earlier by The Times showed deputies swing batons toward a man
on the ground.
The latest
footage to become public is from a cellphone in the possession of attorney
Daniel Rodriguez; according to the TV station, the phone belongs to one several
witnesses to the beating. The cellphone has already been analyzed by the FBI, along with another phone.
Rodriguez
did not returned calls from The Times seeking comment.
[Updated,
6:36 p.m.: Rodriguez
told ABC23 that "the more incriminating video was one on the other
cellphone." He said that video was shot "while the batons were
swinging." Rodriguez added the second phone was returned to his client
with no video. If a video was erased from that phone, he said, it could not be
recovered because of the type of the device.]
The FBI has opened an investigation into Silva’s death at the
request of Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood after he discovered that one of
two cellphones seized from witnesses did not have footage that apparently had
been recorded.
Youngblood
had asked the FBI to analyze the cellphones to determine what footage they
contained and whether anything was deleted.
In
interviews last week, witnesses insisted that the videos
on both phones -- each several minutes long -- clearly captured
deputies repeatedly striking Silva with batons.
"They
must have gotten rid of one of the videos," said Melissa Quair, 31, who
told of seeing deputies pummel and kick Silva after confronting him across the
street from Kern Medical Center in East Bakersfield.
Laura
Vasquez, 26, a friend of the Quair family, said she also watched both videos --
one shot by Quair's mother, the other by Quair's friend -- and they vividly
depicted the violence she witnessed.
Echoing the
account of two other people interviewed, Vasquez said the first two deputies at
the scene woke Silva, who was sleeping in front of a house, and ordered him not
to move. When Silva sat up, looking confused or scared, a deputy hit him on the
head, Vasquez said.
"He
fell back and then the other officer got out and swung toward his head,"
she said. "Mr. Silva was reaching for his head and the officers said 'stop
moving' and 'stop resisting.' He wasn't resisting.… He rolled on his back and
they kept hitting."
"I
have seen the video," Youngblood said last week. "I cannot speculate
whether they acted appropriately or not just by looking at the video."
The
sheriff, however, acknowledged that there is a great deal of public concern
about the incident and subsequent investigation.
"It is
not just troubling to the public, it is not just troubling to news media, it is
troubling to me," he said. In an interview with The Times, he said the
credibility of the department is at stake.
"Baton
strikes were used, but what I don't know is how many and where they were on the
body and if they caused significant injury that caused death," he said.
Youngblood
said the baton is a less lethal weapon, and because of that its use doesn’t
usually lead to deputies being placed on leave. But he said the head is not an
appropriate place for a baton strike.
"Sometimes
in the heat of battle, the baton doesn't go where you want it to go.... If
someone has 20 baton strikes to the head, OK, that is easy for us. But when
there is a fight or scuffle and a baton strike goes where it should not ...
then you have to evaluate,” he said.
Youngblood
noted that no cause of death has been determined for Silva and that toxicology
tests could take four months to be completed.
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