{"id":11121,"date":"2021-04-30T20:44:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T20:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lavozlit.com\/?p=11121"},"modified":"2021-04-30T20:44:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T20:44:26","slug":"during-chauvin-trial-cops-kill-mario-gonzalez-using-chauvins-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2021\/04\/30\/during-chauvin-trial-cops-kill-mario-gonzalez-using-chauvins-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"During Chauvin trial, cops kill Mario Gonzalez using Chauvin\u2019s methods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republished from Socialist Resurgence’s website<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

By ERWIN FREED<\/strong>
\nNewly released body camera footage<\/a><\/span> shows Alameda, Calif., police officers murdering 26-year-old Mario Gonzalez on April 19, only one day before the conclusion of Derek Chauvin\u2019s trial for killing George Floyd. While dozens of people have been killed by cops between the beginning and end of Chauvin\u2019s \u201cday in court,\u201d Gonzalez\u2019s death is especially notable because of the method that was used.
\nFollowing two 911 calls reporting that a man was \u201cloitering around\u201d and \u201ctalking to himself\u201d in a neighborhood park, cops started harassing Gonzalez and put him under arrest. The act of putting handcuffs on him ended up with their placing Gonzalez in a prone position, with one officer putting weight on his back and another holding him down by the arm.
\nIn an attempt to cover up their murderous act, police claimed that there had been a\u00a0\u201cscuffle\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and \u201cphysical altercation\u201d as they attempted to restrain him, followed by a \u201cmedical emergency.\u201d
\nAfter protests by Gonzalez\u2019s family and attorneys, the police department released body-cam video to the public. The footage shows that the officers have him held down and handcuffed<\/span><\/a> for close to five minutes, while Gonzalez gasps for breath, before one of them asks<\/span><\/a>, \u201cthink we could roll him on his side?\u201d The officer pinning him down rejects that, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t want to lose what I got, man.\u201d Less than 30 seconds later, Mario is dead.
\nIn a press conference<\/span><\/a> on April 27, members of Gonzalez\u2019s family, who had privately viewed the footage, said Gonzalez was \u201ccompliant and they continued to pin him down.\u201d
\n\u201cAlameda police officers murdered my brother Mario<\/a><\/span>,\u201d Gonzalez\u2019s brother Gerardo said, noting that his brother was in the park \u201cnot bothering anyone\u201d and that \u201cat no point was he violent.\u201d He added, \u201cEverything we saw in that video was unnecessary. APD took a calm situation and made it fatal. \u2026 Police killed my brother in the same manner that they killed George Floyd<\/span><\/a>.\u201d
\nOne week before the incident in Alameda, Seth Stoughton, a cop turned use-of-force expert and professor, testified at Derek Chauvin\u2019s trial. Stoughton reiterated points he had made as a co-author of an opinion piece<\/a><\/span> titled \u201cGeorge Floyd\u2019s death shows exactly what police should not do\u201d published in the Washington Post<\/em> last May. Both that article and his testimony emphasized that \u201cthe \u2018prone\u2019 position \u2026 face down with his hands behind his back\u2014is intended to be a temporary position to put someone in handcuffs and possibly search for weapons. Being in that position puts weight on the subject\u2019s chest and abdomen, which makes it harder to breathe. For more than 20\u00a0years<\/a><\/span>, police<\/a><\/span> have known that \u201cpositional\u201d or \u201ccompression\u201d asphyxia can occur when someone cannot draw sufficient breath, even if they can breathe enough to gasp or speak. Time in the prone position needs to be kept to a minimum because of the risk of positional asphyxia\u2014which is elevated when the subject is obese, frail or being held down by officers, or has had their breathing compromised by, for example, alcohol, drugs or exposure to pepper spray.\u201d
\nAccording to pulmonologist and breath mechanics expert Dr. Martin Tobin, in trial testimony<\/span><\/a> given on April 8, \u201csimply being in the prone position reduces lung capacity. \u2026 On top of that \u2026 the weight on [Floyd\u2019s] back alone made it three times harder than normal to breathe.\u201d While Gonzalez was generally cooperative, giving the officers information and \u201cthanking\u201d them for their promises that he would be okay, the police video showed him struggling repeatedly against the force on his back. Floyd also attempted to relieve the pressure on himself, which Tobin analyzed as a sign that he was suffocating.
\nWhile the entire world was learning about the deadly consequences of prone positioning, Alameda police used it to restrain a man whose only crime was standing alone outside. Those officers must face consequences, but the struggle against police brutality cannot stop and end with individual cops. The whole racist institution of capitalist policing must be abolished and replaced with community and worker organizations that can carry out conflict resolution in ways that do not depend on perpetuating social harm. In order to really create the conditions for such a change, workers have an obligation to take control of production away from the capitalists who depend on police violence to maintain their profits.
\nPhoto: Screenshot of Gonzalez from police body cam. Two officers hold him on both sides before pinning him to the ground. (NPR<\/span><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republished from Socialist Resurgence’s website By ERWIN FREED Newly released body camera footage shows Alameda, Calif., police officers murdering 26-year-old Mario Gonzalez on April 19, only one day before the conclusion of Derek Chauvin\u2019s trial for killing George Floyd. While dozens of people have been killed by cops between the beginning and end of Chauvin\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882120,"featured_media":11123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27799],"tags":[30423,30418,30144,30424],"class_list":["post-11121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-alameda","tag-derek-chauvin","tag-george-floyd","tag-mario-gonzalez"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-2Tn","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}