Police investigate footage of allegedly mentally ill man's beating

The police chief of the California city of Salinas, where police are investigating an incident in which an allegedly mentally ill man was beaten by five officers with batons on Friday, has denied the man was mentally ill and defended his department's actions.

Salinas police Chief Kelly McMillin said his officers responded to reports that Jose Velasco, 28, was beating his mother and was climbing on cars in a traffic lane shortly before the officers reached the scene. "Their first instinct was to protect this woman from this man,” he said. “Their first priority was her safety."

Police are investigating his case in response to rising anger over cellphone footage of the incident, made public on June 5, in which five police officers can be seen beating Velasco with batons and striking him with stun guns. Officers repeatedly struck him and then forced him into a police van. In a post of the assault, a woman identifying herself as Velasco’s sister said the police overstated the threat and said her brother was "mentally ill."

“He didn't try to kill my mom,” she wrote. “She walked away just fine. 

“My poor brother," the commenter said in a second post. "He is mentally ill and the cops had no right to keep hitting him he was already on the floor.”

In an interview with Al Jazeera, McMillin said Velasco's mental health status is "a little unclear." After investigators spoke to Velasco on Monday, "he appeared normal," McMillin said. The police chief was unable to confirm whether the investigators who questioned Velasco were trained to deal with mentally ill people.

McMillin said the investigation remains "ongoing," and dismissed the impact of Velasco's mental health status on his officers' course of action.

"This is not a story about the Salinas police beating up a mentally ill person,” he said. “This is a story of the Salinas police arresting a man who was beating up his mother while he was under the influence of methamphetamine and alcohol."

McMillin would not confirm whether the person who left the comment on YouTube was Velasco’s sister. He said that police had interviewed Velasco’s mother but would not comment on the details of that interview.

McMillin told KSBW that batons are commonly used against people who are intoxicated by methamphetamine and alcohol. “He was just incredibly strong because of the methamphetamine, and he’s not reacting to pain compliance techniques, like the Taser and so this is what causes the officers to escalate their use of force,” McMillin said.

Batons “are not a great choice” because they cause injuries, he added, but their use was deemed appropriate at that time, McMillin said, because Velasco had allegedly resisted arrest and tried to grab an officer’s stun gun. Velasco suffered bruises and has a fractured leg. After being taken into custody, Velasco tried to attack the paramedic until chemical sedation knocked him out, McMillin said. 

"The video alone is horrific and inflammatory," the police chief told KSBW. "Anybody who looks at that video without context would have concerns, because it looks terrible." 

Incidents of police violence directed at mentally ill people are common in the United States. At least half of the people shot and killed by police each year have mental health problems, according to an analysis by Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to better treatment of mental illness. 

Micaela Davis, staff attorney at northern California’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the use of force in the video appears to be "excessive" given the circumstances surrounding Velasco’s arrest. “Once a person is subdued and face down on the ground there is no need for a fifth officer to keep striking him,” she said.

Proper training for officers dealing with people suffering from mental illness is imperative to ensure police follow protocol, she said, adding, “There are steps that police should be taking so that things don’t escalate as happened in this incident.”

Such steps would involve setting up a perimeter around the person who appears to be in a mental health crisis, calling on people trained in working with people with mental illness, and, rather than yelling at the person, recognizing that a mentally ill person may not understand instructions while experiencing a crisis, she said.