Manslaughter Case Dropped Against Last Alameda Officer Charged in Mario Gonzalez Death

Updated 3:58 p.m. Friday

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on Friday dropped charges against the final officer who was still facing prosecution in the 2021 death of Mario Gonzalez.

Prosecutors decided to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge after a forensic pathology expert, Dr. Bennet Omalu, made inconsistent statements about the case under penalty of perjury, they said. Officer Eric McKinley’s defense argued this month that Omalu had recently met with the district attorney’s office and called the prosecution “political.”

Omalu, whose independent second autopsy showed that Gonzalez died as a result of “restraint asphyxiation,” not the “toxic effects of methamphetamine,” as the coroner’s initial autopsy suggested, was a key witness for the defense.

“Although Dr. Omalu did not change his ultimate opinion on the cause of death, multiple key inconsistencies by this now hostile yet necessary witness led the People to conclude they could not meet their burden of proving Officer McKinley committed involuntary manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt,” the office said in a statement.

Gonzalez, 26, died after police pinned him to the ground in an Alameda park. The prosecution of those officers on involuntary manslaughter charges has been fraught with problems since the case against two of the three officers was thrown out in October.

Former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price — who was recalled from office last month — charged McKinley, James Fisher and Cameron Leahy with involuntary manslaughter for the death of Gonzalez in April. That reversed a decision by her predecessor, Nancy O’Malley, who cleared the officers of criminal liability after finding no evidence of wrongdoing.

The cases against Fisher and Leahy were dismissed after a judge ruled that the district attorney’s office failed to file arrest warrants that would have commenced felony prosecution within the three-year statute of limitations. The case against McKinley was allowed to move forward because he had been out of the country for months within that three-year period, effectively pausing the clock.

Earlier this month, McKinley’s defense accused the district attorney’s office of withholding statements Omalu made criticizing the prosecution. They said Omalu told the office that he “believes this case to be a ‘political’ prosecution,” according to a defense motion. Omalu also said the officers did not commit criminal misconduct and should not be prosecuted, the motion said.

In November, Omalu filed a motion to quash a district attorney’s office subpoena that compelled him to testify in the criminal case. The office said that because his declaration submitted under penalty of perjury in that motion contained inconsistencies with his sworn deposition in the civil case, he would have “more than likely” been impeached if he had been forced to testify.

“Another possible forensic pathology expert who could testify on cause of death for the prosecution relied on Dr. Omalu for review, leaving no way to avoid calling Dr. Omalu to the witness stand,” the statement reads.

Omalu did not respond to a request for comment.

Gonzalez’s death caused outrage and drew comparisons to the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in 2020. He was unarmed when officers responded to a 911 call of a man behaving strangely in an Alameda park. 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, and after about five minutes, the officers rolled Gonzalez onto his side, saying he was becoming unresponsive. Officers administered CPR and at least two doses of Narcan before Gonzalez was taken to a hospital, where he was later declared dead.

The video footage spurred Gonzalez’s family to accuse the officers of murder, calling it a clear case of police brutality.

The 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. Omalu’s autopsy, independently requested by Gonzalez’s family, showed that his death had been “a result of restraint asphyxiation.”

After O’Malley declined to file charges, Price reopened the case shortly after she took office in 2023 as part of a new Police Accountability Unit, which reopened eight police shootings or in-custody death cases in early 2023.

The decision from the district attorney’s office to drop charges against McKinley comes just weeks after Royl Roberts, who was Price’s second in command, took over as the interim head of the office.