A California Man Died After Cops Knelt on His Neck During a Mental Health Call. Then the Department Tried To Hide It.

“On December 23, cops responded to a call from Isabella Collins, Quinto’s sister, who reported a mental health crisis. A wrongful death claim filed by the family against the city of Antioch mentions that Quinto made a plea upon seeing the officers: “Please don’t kill me,” he said. He would be dead just moments later, after the cops knelt on Quinto’s neck for five minutes, according to the suit.

The claim notes that Quinto “had been suffering from depression, anxiety, and paranoia for the previous few months” and that the evening of December 23 brought on an episode of paranoia. “What are you doing?” he kept asking people in the house, following them as he feared they would leave him alone. Quinto’s sister phoned the police for help; Quinto’s mother, Maria Quinto-Collins, calmed her son by sitting with him on the floor as she held him “onto her chest with her hands clasped behind his back.”

Upon arriving, the officers removed him from Quinto-Collins’ arms and put him on the floor before one placed his leg on Quinto’s neck. “This is what we do to keep them calm,” he said.

That cop eventually got fatigued, and so the second officer replaced him, at which point Quinto began to bleed from his mouth. “At no time while being restrained did Mr. Quinto resist physically or verbally,” the suit says.

Video footage taken by Quinto-Collins shows police turning over her lifeless son to reveal blood dripping on his chin as they try to shake him awake. “What happened?” Quinto-Collins asks. “Please, please…What is happening? Does he have a pulse?”

Quinto was later transferred to a hospital, where he died three days later.”

“It’s an investigation that the public may never have known about if the police department, which attempted to conceal the information from both lawmakers and community members, had its way.”

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