He Told Police, 'I Can't Breathe,' 16 Times Before He Died. Now, His Family Seeks Justice.

By Katie Wedell, USA Today

15 February 21

 

n the reenactment of Hector Arreola's final moments, the actor portraying him yells for his mother as two police officers hold him down.

"They're gonna kill me," he says as his legs are shackled.

Hector Arreola was 30 years old in 2017 when he died in police custody in Columbus, Georgia. His family released a 4-minute video Friday in the hope of bringing renewed attention to their fight for justice.

Arreola's case was one of 32 fatal police encounters USA TODAY examined last year in which the deceased said "I can't breathe."

In addition to the reenactment, Hector's father's voice describes how during the real incident, Arreola told the officers 16 times that he couldn't breathe while one of them sat on him. Viewers hear Hector's voice on the 911 calls he made that night, and see his bloodied and lifeless body on a stretcher as it was captured on a police body camera.

“This could be your family member.”

His father, Rodrigo Arreola, wants people to keep that in mind when they watch it.

In the video he says one of the family's goals is to end qualified immunity — the legal doctrine that shields police officers from being held personally liable in civil court if they kill someone. A judge ruled in the Arreolas' pending lawsuit that the two officers involved do not have qualified immunity, so the family's case is proceeding to a jury trial in May.

But the Arreolas want all families to have the same opportunity to hold officers directly accountable without having to overcome the legal hurdle of qualified immunity.

"Under qualified immunity, government officials can only be held accountable for violating someone’s rights if a court has previously ruled that it was 'clearly established' those precise actions were unconstitutional," according to the Institute for Justice, one of many groups advocating for the end to the doctrine.

"A family cannot hold anyone accountable," Rodrigo Arreola said. "How many people are going to go through this and be completely ignored?"

The Arreola family held a news conference Friday along with the Columbus, Georgia chapter of the NAACP to premier the video, call for an end to qualified immunity and to put pressure on the new district attorney for the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit, Mark Jones. Last year, Jones told USA TODAY the officers involved should be charged with aggravated assault and felony murder.

He said he'd convene a grand jury, but has not done so since taking office in January.

"Where's the action?" Rodrigo Arreola said.

Jones did not return a call for comment Friday.

Between 900 and 1,000 people are killed each year by police officers, according to a Washington Post tracker, but an average of seven officers are charged with murder or manslaughter in such cases each year, according to research from Bowling Green State University.

On Jan. 9, 2017, Hector Arreola called 911 twice requesting police assistance and saying someone was threatening his life and his mother.

When officers arrived, they found him acting strangely and called for an ambulance, but before it arrived they grabbed him to arrest him for disorderly conduct and a struggle ensued, according to court records and body camera footage.

One officer held down Arreola by the neck and upper back while the other sat on his lower back and buttocks, according the records. The struggle continued for six minutes and officers stayed on top of him for two additional minutes after he was cuffed.

Sixteen times, court records show, Hector Arreola told police he couldn’t breathe. Officers responded that he could. Arreola passed out and was taken to the hospital. He was removed from life support the next day.

His cause of death was originally ruled an accident and attributed to methamphetamine intoxication, but the state medical examiner amended the death certificate from accidental to homicide last summer after reviewing the police body camera footage.

The video about Hector's death, by Columbus, Georgia filmmaker Bobby Sampson, amassed nearly 90,000 views on Instagram in the first four hours it was posted.

"Our intention is to provide a voice, and assistance in healing, to the victims and families who have suffered the injustice of police violence," Rodrigo Arreola said. "Our goal is to change the laws that provide immunity from wrongdoing to police and the governments that employ them."

The family is in the process of setting up an official non-profit to further that goal. In the meantime they are taking donations via GoFundMe.