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Video shows Oregon woman telling deputies she can't breathe prior to death in custody
A woman in police custody in Oregon repeatedly told deputies she couldn't breathe shortly before she died, according to video obtained by FOX 12 in Portland.
A woman in police custody in Oregon repeatedly told deputies she couldn't breathe shortly before she died, according to video obtained by FOX 12 in Portland.
Gerlinde Spring Lynch is heard saying she couldn't breathe while being physically wrestled into a restraint chair by jail personnel on February 18.
The backstory:
Lynch became unresponsive, and she died from a combination of issues, including methamphetamine toxicity, physical restraint, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease, according to the Oregon State Medical Examiner, who ruled the death a homicide after a four-month investigation.
Lynch was arrested on February 18 as police responded to reports she was throwing rocks, pulling up plants, and moving large boulders around the drive-thru area of a KFC in Oregon City. She arrived at Clackamas County Jail before 11 p.m. and surveillance ideo showed more than a dozen personnel assembled to remove her from a patrol vehicle.
The video obtained by FOX 12 was from a sergeant's cellphone, which showed Lynch saying, "I can’t breathe," and "I need to breathe" as they attempted to strap her into a restraint chair.
A deputy is heard telling his colleagues to lean Lynch forward as others used their body weight to force her into a forward position while strapped to the chair.
By 11:42 p.m. Lynch was pronounced dead.
The Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges after concluding the sheriff's office personnel were not criminally negligent.
The other side:
Lynch's father is pursuing a wrongful-death lawsuit against those involved. According to FOX 12, the manufacturer of the restraint used has an explicit warning of "DO NOT LEAN DETAINEE FORWARD" in large red lettering.
"We believe that the deputies involved knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, of these express manufacturer warnings and of the risks of positional and restraint asphyxia associated with bending a restrained, agitated detainee forward at the waist, and that their conduct in doing so was negligent and constituted an unreasonable use of force and was a substantial contributing cause of her death," wrote attorney Chad Stavley, who is representing the surviving family.
The Source: Information in this story came from FOX 12 in Portland.
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