A memorial for Mario Gonzalez during a vigil in his honor in Alameda on April 21, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
The only one of three Alameda police officers still facing prosecution in the 2021 death of Mario Gonzalez pleaded not guilty Friday morning at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
Officer Eric McKinley is charged with felony involuntary manslaughter. Charges against the other two officers were dismissed this month after a judge ruled that the Alameda County district attorney’s office failed to file necessary paperwork within the three-year statute of limitations.
Family and supporters of Gonzalez rallied Friday outside the courthouse, demanding justice for Gonzalez’s death.
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“This type of oppression to our own communities and the excuse after excuse of letting these cops free is no longer going to be the ordinary. This is not normal, this is not humane, this is not recognizing our humanity,” Ericson Amaya, a family supporter and organizer with Oakland youth activism group 67 Sueños, said during the rally after the plea hearing.
Advocates had earlier criticized the district attorney’s office for its filing error, saying it allowed officers who should have been held accountable to walk free.
Edith Arenales, the mother of Mario Gonzalez, speaks on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, outside the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland with a group of community organizers and supporters calling for justice for Gonzalez’s death.
Gonzalez, 26, died after police pinned him to the ground in an Alameda park on April 19, 2021. He was unarmed when officers responded to a 911 call of a man behaving strangely.
“He seems like he’s tweaking. But he’s not doing anything wrong. He’s just scaring my wife,” a 911 caller said in dispatch audio recordings.
Body camera footage released by the city shows the officers pin down Gonzalez, who is mumbling and appears not to be fully lucid after he resists being handcuffed.
At least one officer pressed an elbow and knee into Gonzalez’s back and shoulder.
After about five minutes, the officers rolled Gonzalez onto his side, saying he was becoming unresponsive. About eight minutes after they began to arrest Gonzalez, he stopped breathing. The officers administered CPR and at least two doses of Narcan before Gonzalez was taken to a hospital, where he was later declared dead.
Gonzalez’s family called his death a clear case of police brutality. An initial autopsy by the Alameda County coroner classified Gonzalez’s death as a homicide but noted contributing factors to his cardiac arrest were the “toxic effects of methamphetamine,” stress related to altercation and restraint, obesity and alcoholism. A second, independent autopsy, requested by attorneys representing Gonzalez’s family, found that his death had been “a result of restraint asphyxiation.”
McKinley is next scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 7.
