Henrico officials won’t release documents in Irvo Otieno’s death

Despite numerous requests from the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Irvo Otieno’s family for information in the death of the 28-year-old, state and Henrico County officials have withheld key records about his treatment at Central State Hospital or have refused to answer questions.

Officials have been so tight-lipped that Sheriff Alisa Gregory declined to even say whether a doctor is available on weekends at county jail facilities.

Gregory, Henrico Police Chief Eric English, Henrico Manager John Vithoulkas and Health Commissioner Nelson Smith all cited an active Virginia State Police investigation as their reason for not releasing certain documents or answering questions.

The state’s Freedom of Information Act generally does not prohibit state and local officials from releasing records, but it does give them the option to keep records secret.

Henrico police also cited a General Assembly change last year in the Freedom of Information Act — which makes it difficult for the public to get police records — and said police are now prohibited by law from releasing certain records that would jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation or cause “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

“It’s not surprising, but it’s troubling,” said Mark Krudys, a lawyer for Otieno’s family, of the secrecy. “What it means is that the very reason that FOIA was enacted is continually being thwarted under the title of discretion.”

Krudys has handled dozens of lawsuits stemming from deaths in jails and prisons, and said the secrecy is systemic.

“This has been a constant frustration in all of the cases that I have,” he said. “You would think that those individuals that are responsible for the care and custody of a deceased person would sit down and speak with the family and tell them what they know of what occurred. That never occurs.

“And the family is always thrust into a position of having to utilize the legal process just to find out what happened to their loved ones. It is not just this case,” he added. “It is every case.”

Officials decline to release information

Gregory

The Times-Dispatch in early March first reported the details about Otieno’s death in what has become a national news story. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family of George Floyd, who was murdered in 2020 by Minneapolis police, is also representing Otieno’s family. Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to Floyd’s family in a civil lawsuit over his death.

A phone call to police on March 3 led to Otieno going to a local hospital, then jail, then the state hospital where he died, shackled, under a pile of Henrico deputy sheriffs. His mother, Caroline Ouko, has maintained that her son should have been treated as a psychiatric patient in distress, and not as a criminal.

Otieno lived with Ouko in Henrico. A neighbor reportedly called police to their home after Otieno pulled light fixtures from the neighbor’s yard, his mother has said. She said she told them her son — who she noted has been diagnosed as bipolar — was in mental distress, offered to compensate the neighbor and believed the matter was settled. But the family ended up with 10 to 12 Henrico police officers on their front lawn, some with their stun guns out.

Attorney Mark Krudys, left, speaks to the media as Caroline Ouko, mother of Irvo Otieno, holds a portrait of her son with attorney Ben Crump, center left, and her older son, Leon Ochieng, right, at the Dinwiddie County Courthouse on March 16. Prosecutors say Otieno was smothered to death when Henrico sheriff’s deputies and Central State Hospital workers held him on the ground for 12 minutes while he was in handcuffs and leg irons.
Daniel Sangjib Min, TIMES-DISPATCH

It is unclear why authorities dispatched so many officers. In response to a public records request, Henrico police would not release a copy of the neighbor’s call to police or copies of police reports from that call.

Otieno was taken to Parham Doctors’ Hospital, whose parent company has an agreement with Henrico government’s mental health agency to provide behavioral health emergency services. He was under an emergency custody order, which can last up to eight hours.

Henrico police then decided his next stop should be a jail cell. Officers decided to arrest Otieno on three felony charges alleging he assaulted them, as well as with misdemeanor charges of being disorderly in a hospital and damaging an officer’s uniform. He was booked into the Henrico Jail, where he was in custody of the sheriff — a move that mental health experts say was flawed because it took someone in a mental health crisis away from a medical setting and placed him into a jail cell.

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Henrico police would not release reports about the events that took place at Parham Doctors’ Hospital that prompted police to take Otieno to jail.

County Police Chief English, through a spokesman, declined to talk about why his officers decided to arrest Otieno, and whether that decision was made by the officers at the hospital or by their supervisors.

Otieno arrived at the jail late on Friday, March 3; his mother has said he could not see a doctor until Monday.

Gregory, who was elected in 2019 and promised to provide hope for people held in Henrico jail facilities, declined to answer questions for this story, including questions as to whether a doctor is available in her jail facilities on weekends.

Through a spokesman, Gregory also declined to say if Otieno was given his medications during his stay in the jail from Friday to Monday. His mother says he was not.

“As this case remains under investigation and in the court system, Henrico County Sheriff Alisa A. Gregory has no comment beyond her original statement,” the county government’s public relations director said by email.

Otieno

Video released as part of an ongoing Virginia State Police criminal investigation shows deputies charging into the Henrico jail cell where Otieno was inside, naked.

Video shows a deputy punch Otieno at least three times. Deputies then carried him by his limbs as they loaded him into an SUV for the hospital transport.

‘The community deserves the answers’

Ann Cabell Baskervill, the commonwealth’s attorney in Dinwiddie County, secured second-degree murder indictments from a grand jury against seven Henrico deputies and three Central State Hospital workers in Otieno’s March 6 death. Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor also is reviewing events that happened in Henrico for possible criminal charges.

The state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services oversees Central State and other state mental health hospitals. Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed Smith as the agency commissioner; the governor has a plan that is intended to improve Virginia’s troubled mental health system.

Smith, through a spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed for this story or answer specific questions, including questions as to why Otieno was taken to Central State Hospital and what type of medical treatment he immediately received.

Wall-mounted hospital video shows two deputies over Otieno, his hands and legs shackled, as he is seated; more deputies later pin him down in video that does not include audio. Henrico sheriff’s deputies do not have body cameras.

“DBHDS declines to comment on matters related to the pending criminal investigation and related legal proceedings,” a spokeswoman for Smith’s agency said by email. “DBHDS and Central State Hospital are fully cooperating with the Virginia State Police in this investigation and will respect the legal process while we and our staff continue to provide important care to the patients at Central State Hospital.”

Vithoulkas did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story.

Monica Hutchinson, first vice president of the Henrico NAACP, said the lack of information from Henrico and state officials is concerning and that the NACCP has many questions, including why police arrested Otieno at the hospital when he was in crisis.

“Why was he not treated as a patient, as someone who needed mental health care?” she said. “What they did to him, it would not have been okay even if he was not in a mental health crisis.”

“The community deserves the answers to these, the family deserves the answers to these, and then we need to make sure that we are working to make sure that this never happens again.”

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Family of Irvo Otieno calls for justice as video shows death in custody

Family members of Irvo Otieno and their lawyers on Tuesday called for mental health reform and steps to be taken to avoid a repeat of what happened to the 28-year-old Henrico County man who died earlier this month in a Central State Hospital intake room.

“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.”

The comments came after the release of a video from the mental hospital showing Otieno being pinned to the floor prior to his death on March 6. A Dinwiddie County grand jury on Tuesday indicted seven Henrico County deputies and three hospital workers on second-degree murder charges in a case that has garnered national attention.

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.
Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Office

Crump, who also represented the family of George Floyd, has said Otieno’s treatment has close parallels with Floyd’s killing in police custody in Minneapolis in 2020.

“It is not lost on anybody who saw that video today, the fact that it was so unnecessary,” Crump said Tuesday. “Irvo was handcuffed at the wrist, he had leg irons on, he was facedown. Why did they feel it was necessary to put all their weight on him, for some of the officers to put their knee on his neck?”

Caleb Kershner, a defense attorney for deputy Randy Boyer, was critical of the video being released and took issue with Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Baskervill.

“It’s going to be more difficult to find a jury that has not been tainted or read a particular news story of any sort. So I’m disappointed in it,” he said earlier Tuesday after the court hearing in Dinwiddie County.

Otieno’s mother Caroline Ouko on Tuesday called the indicted deputies and hospital employees “thugs” and “monsters.”

“I was happy to hear that they were indicted,” Ouko said. “That is just the beginning step.”

The following video shows Irvo Otieno on March 6 at the Central State Hospital. Read more coverage here: https://bit.ly/3TvxZAN

Attorney Mark Krudys said he was troubled by the individuals who stood by and watched as the officers pushed down on Otieno.

“Everybody has an obligation to intervene in that circumstance, to say ‘no, that’s not right,’” Krudys said. “But nobody intervened. And then when his body was lifeless, and his pants were dangling on him, they didn’t do anything for an appreciable period of time.”

Krudys said his team is looking into possible body camera footage from Henrico police regarding a March 3 incident, when Otieno was transported from his Henrico home to Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.

Ouko said she was excluded in the process of advocating for her son, noting that she made four attempts to see him while he was at Henrico hospital.

“In mental health and mental distress, your child needs you,” Ouko said. “Seeing me could have made have made a big difference.”

Instead, Otieno was taken to the Henrico Jail and later to Central State. Krudys said the deputies were not wearing body cameras at either location.

Henrico NAACP Vice President Monica Hutchinson during the Tuesday press conference said: “Jail is not, nor has it ever been, the best place for those having a mental health crisis. We must eliminate the use of jail as a response to a mental health crisis and mental illness, and instead work to improve access to community-based crisis centers.”

Otieno’s brother Leon Ochieng urged Gov. Glenn Youngkin to make mental health a priority, pointing out Youngkin’s recent comments calling Otieno’s death “heart-wrenching.”

“If you really do empathize and feel what we feel, do something,” Ochieng said. “Let your state be an example … all we need to do is make this an agenda to put pressure on lawmakers to invite our communities to have families who are ambassadors for mental health.”

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney in a social media post on Tuesday said: “Irvo Otieno should be alive today. His life was taken in a place where he should have been safe. We need accountability and we need more mental health resources.”