Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

The death of a Latino and indigenous man in police custody in circumstances similar to George Floyd was kept secret by California authorities for nearly a decade, an investigation has revealed.

Darryl Dean Mefferd, 49, died in 2016 after being detained by the Vallejo Police Department (VPD) for unclear reasons and allegedly restrained face down on the ground, according to local news outlet Open Vallejo.

But because his death was ruled accidental by the county coroner – who is also a serving police sergeant – officials never publicly announced it and allegedly fought in court to keep it secret.


The alleged use of 'prone restraint' echoes the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer kneeling on his back for nearly ten minutes while attempting to arrest him on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill.

An inside source told Open Vallejo that body camera footage from the night of the incident showed a Vallejo police officer sitting "with his whole body weight" on Mefferd's back for about the same duration.

It comes after repeated law enforcement scandals in the San Francisco Bay Area city, which had one of the highest rates of police shootings of any American city between 2010 and 2020, paying out so much money in legal settlements and damages that it was forced to withdraw from a statewide municipal insurance scheme.

VPD officers have been accused of routinely slow-rolling internal investigations, botching a major investigation into a woman's kidnapping, and adopting secret honor symbols to glorify officers who killed citizens. Last year a judge ruled that senior officials had illegally destroyed evidence relating to multiple police shootings.……

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...death-police-vallejo-california-b2560236.html