Cops Gagged and Smothered a Man to Death, Then Fist-Bumped

 

After a disturbed man bit an officer, a ‘spit sock’ was put over his mouth, and then more officers got on his back. Yet police say the man’s death wasn’t their fault.

By Kelly Weill

Police handcuffed Ben Anthony C de Baca, threw him on his stomach, pulled a mask over his face, and planted their knees in his back. While he cried that he couldn’t breathe, the officers were busy laughing at a joke. They stopped laughing when they realized he’d gone limp.

“Anthony,” one officer said, wiggling the dead man’s arm. “Anthony.”

“Fuck,” another one said.

He was dead.

Twelve minutes after that, two officers fist-bumped.

Medical examiners ruled C de Baca’s Sept. 6, 2015 death a homicide from “excited delirium (cocaine intoxication) complicated by means of physical restraint.” An investigation by New Mexico’s Rio Rancho Police Department found no criminal intent by any of the three police agencies involved in the arrest. But C de Baca’s family says his death was a senseless act of police brutality and incompetence. 

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Source: The Daily Beast