Family members of Angelo Quinto, a 30-year-old Navy veteran from Antioch, California, who suffered from mental-health issues, called the police one night in December 2020, after Quinto showed erratic behavior, and they felt afraid. Three days later, Quinto was dead at a nearby hospital, having never regained consciousness after a violent encounter with the officers who responded to the family’s call.
Instead of providing help, Quinto’s mother and sister say, one officer handcuffed Quinto, while another knelt on his neck for at least five minutes, as Quinto pleaded, “Please don’t **** me”; horrifying video recorded by his mother shows police flipping over an unmoving Quinto after they detained him, with blood smeared on his mouth and pooling on the floor. Quinto was taken to a hospital and died three days later. Months after the horrifying incident, the Antioch Police Department has released little information about what happened to Quinto, nor even an official cause of death.
Quinto’s family believes that he died from asphyxiation at the hands of the police, and have filed a wrongful death claim. Seven months after nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, who was also brutally knelt on while being detained, they are demanding accountability from the police department and justice for Quinto. “We trusted them too much during a time of fear and vulnerability and panic,” Quinto’s sister told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I would not call them if this happened again.”
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