The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday that the lone police officer still charged in the death of Mario Gonzalez while in custody in Alameda in 2021 has dismissed the case.
The office issued a news release Friday morning stating that the involuntary manslaughter charge against Alameda Police Officer Eric McKinley had been dropped due to inconsistent statements made by forensic pathology expert Dr. Bennett Omalu.
McKinley was one of three officers present at the April 19, 2021, incident that led to Gonzalez’s death. Police responded to calls about a man acting strangely near a park. McKinley and fellow Alameda police officers James Fisher and Cameron Leahy found 26-year-old Gonzalez and detained him.
Alameda County District Attorney
The unarmed Gonzalez was pushed to the ground by the officers and their colleagues body camera footage could be seen at least one officer pressed his elbow and knee into Gonzalez’s back and shoulders as he called for help. The officer continued to pin Gonzalez to the ground until he went limp and died.
The incident gained national attention following similar deaths in custody, including the killing of George Floyd. A The coroner’s report attributed the cause of death to a combination of medications and the stress of the altercation with officers.
One year after death, Then-District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced she would not prosecute the officers after her office determined that the officers acted reasonably in detaining and arresting Gonzalez and were “not criminally liable.”
However, after Pamela Price was elected district attorney in Alameda County, she announced earlier this year that her office would accuses the officers of involuntary manslaughter.
A judge will come in October dismissed the charges against Fisher and Leahy due to the statute of limitations, with the judge citing what he called “the hasty and careless work of the district attorney’s office in filing this complaint.” McKinley still faced the involuntary manslaughter charge for Gonzalez’s death until the charge was dismissed Friday.
The Alameda County District Attorney said Dr. Omalu was the forensic pathology expert who testified in the civil case brought by Mario Gonzalez’s family on behalf of his son against the city of Alameda, the Alameda Police Department and the three officers.
Omalu performed a second autopsy on Gonzalez for the civil case and said the cause of death was “asphyxia by force.” Alameda would do that later handle the civil proceedingspaying $11 million to Gonzalez’s son’s estate and another $350,000 to Gonzalez’s mother.
In Friday’s release, prosecutors said Omalu “recently filed a motion to quash the People’s subpoena compelling him to appear in court to testify in the criminal case.” In that motion, “Omalu wrote and signed an affidavit under penalty of perjury that was inconsistent with his affidavit in the civil case.”
“Although Dr. Omalu did not change his final opinion as to the cause of death, several key inconsistencies from this now hostile but necessary witness led the People to conclude that they could not meet their burden of proving that Officer McKinley committed involuntary manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt. ” the statement from the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said.
The dismissal of the charges against McKinley comes a month later Price conceded defeat in the November recall election. Her interim replacement, chief assistant Royl Roberts, intervened on December 6 after the recall result was certified by the province.
