Police in Sacramento, California have released a dashcam video from July showing two officers attempting to run over a mentally ill homeless man as he runs away from them in a street.
The video shows 51-year-old Joseph Mann, a homeless man who suffered from mental illness, repeatedly crossing the street to avoid the police vehicle. Meanwhile, cops appear to be attempting to use their car as a weapon against him.
In the video, one officer can be heard saying, “fuck this guy.” The driver of the vehicle says, “I’m going to hit him” as another officer responds, “Okay. Go for it. Go for it.”
The officers initially aim for Mann when he’s standing in the pedestrian crosswalk. As Mann runs towards the median divide, officers back up their car to try to hit him there. Once Mann makes his way to the other side of the street, officers get out of their vehicle and run after him past the median, saying they’re going to “get him.” They later fired 18 bullets, hitting Mann 14 times.
Watch the video (content note: this video depicts the shooting):
Sacramento police released the dashcam video on September 20, only after the publication Sacramento Bee obtained footage from a private citizen that showed officers shooting Mann. The Bee enhanced the audio from the video so that it’s possible to hear the conversation between Officers Randy Lozoya and John Tennis.
Before Mann was shot, eyewitnesses told the Sacramento Bee that he had punched his finger in the air and urinated his pants, potential signs of mental distress. They said that Mann later took out a knife and threw it in the air, catching it by the handle. That prompted them to call the police. One witness said that it appeared Mann had a gun in his waistband. Police who later canvassed the area did not report finding a gun.
Both Lozoya and Tennis are now on a “modified duty.”
“They are officers that shouldn’t be in uniform,” Robert Mann, Joseph Mann’s brother, told the Sacramento Bee after learning about the audio. “If this is their state of mind when they go to work, this doesn’t serve anyone well.”
The Mann family has filed a federal lawsuit and a claim against the city of Sacramento. The family lawyer, who called the officers’ behavior “cowboyish” and “outrageous,” said that he would include the attempt to hit Mann with a cop car in the complaint.
Excessive use of force by Sacramento police officers using their vehicle as a potential lethal weapon will likely do little to tamp down accusations of police brutality against civilians, which have intensified over the past month thanks to several high-profile police shootings caught on video.
Mann’s death also speaks to the fact that police struggle to handle encounters with people who suffer from mental health issues. About a quarter of the people killed by police are mentally ill, according to data collected by the Washington Post. Another recent report found that about half of the people killed in police encounters have some kind of disability. Part of the issue is that the police have become default first responders to mental health crises, but they aren’t necessarily trained to know how to de-escalate the situation.
Earlier this week, police shot and killed another California man, Alfredo Olango, an El Cajon man who described as having a mental breakdown over the death of a friend before the deadly encounter. His sister called 911 for help dealing with the mental health emergency, but police ended up shooting and killing Olango instead of helping him.
In July, Florida police officers shot a therapist in the leg as he tried to calm down a patient in the middle of the street.