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BLOOD ON ARPAIO'S HANDS

Imagine you are the mother of a mentally handicapped thirty-three-year-old-man.  Your son functions on the level of a twelve-year-old boy.  His disability often causes him to act erratically, but you still hope that one day, he can lead a normal life.  One night in August, 2001, he is arrested on a misdemeanor loitering charge when he begins acting strangely in a convenience store.  When officers arrive to arrest him, he is clinging to the store's coffee machine and won't let go.  Four officers forcibly remove him from the store, handcuff him, and throw him to the ground to be hogtied. The force seems excessive, since your son is disabled and only weighs about a hundred and thirty pounds. A few minutes later, his limbs bound behind his tiny frame, officers load him into the squad car to take him away.  Before they pull away, your son asks you, like a little kid:

"Mom, will you ride in the car with me?"

"I can't," you tell him, "the police won't let me." 

You figure that the police will probably hold your son overnight, and you head home to get some rest. 

Two hours later, your son is dead.

When Charles Agster arrives at Madison Street Jail, he is confused, as is typical of his condition.  He tries to wriggle underneath a bench, and although he is still hogtied, three or more officers and a sheriff's deputy jump on him, punch him, and knee him in the side.  One officer grips his face, pressing upward toward his chin. Although he is now unresponsive, the officers drag him, face down, into the Intake area and strap him into a restraint chair.  They place a spit-hood over his head, encasing him in darkness.  Minutes later, he stops breathing.  The original autopsy lists "positional asphyxia due to restraint" as his cause of death. 

Videotape of the incident shows guards trying to resuscitate Agster, but he's already brain dead. A 2002 Amnesty International report expresses concern "that the degree of force used against Agster was grossly disproportionate to any threat posed by him." 

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