{"id":6512,"date":"2021-03-06T08:35:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-06T18:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2021-03-06T08:35:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-06T18:35:39","slug":"filipino-americans-demand-answers-and-justice-to-the-police-killing-of-angelo-quinto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2021\/03\/06\/filipino-americans-demand-answers-and-justice-to-the-police-killing-of-angelo-quinto\/","title":{"rendered":"Filipino-Americans Demand Answers And Justice to the Police Killing of Angelo Quinto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t kill me.\u201d

\u201cPlease don\u2019t kill me\u201d — these were the last few words that Angelo Quinto said before being forced to the ground and handcuffed.

The 30-year-old, Fil-Am and Navy veteran is now dead.

The Filipino American community should be outraged and demand an independent investigation over the killing of Angelo who allegedly died after police kneeled on his neck for five minutes, similar to the restraining technique used on George Floyd. The incident occurred on Dec. 23, 2020 when police were called to the Quinto home in Northern California by Angelo\u2019s sister who was worried about the mental condition of her brother. The family said Angelo had mental health issues and would slip into paranoia after he sustained a head injury from an assault in early 2020.

By the time police arrived, Angelo\u2019s mother said he already had calmed down. But she said the police still restrained him. \u201cOne officer was holding his legs and the other officer had his knee here,\u201d said Cassandra Quinto-Collins (mother of Angelo), gesturing to the back of her neck.

\u201cI trusted the police because I thought they knew what they were doing but he was actually passive and visibly not dangerous or a threat so, it was absolutely unnecessary what they did to him,\u201d she said.

Angelo eventually lost consciousness. Blood flowed out of his mouth. He never regained consciousness. Three days later he died in the hospital.

Cassandra began recording the police after she said she saw her son\u2019s eyes were rolled up in his head. The video shows her son\u2019s body on the floor, bloodied face. His hands cuffed.

The Quinto family is now suing the Antioch Police Department. An investigation is ongoing.

The family\u2019s attorney John Burris said, \u201cThere are a lot of issues wrong here. The technique applied by officers. The failure to de-escalate. The jumping on his back, the putting into his neck by a knee.

\u201cGiven what we know, which is that we had a healthy young man in his mother\u2019s arms. The police grabbed him. They themselves, their conduct, snuffed the life out of him. We see that not only as a violation of his civil rights but it\u2019s a violation of humanity, frankly.\u201d\u00a0

Burris also mentioned that police failed to turn on their body cameras and the camera in their patrol car.

Death shouldn\u2019t have happened
<\/strong>While the details of the incident are still under investigation, there are glaring misconduct by the police officers.

The knee-to-neck restraining is widely discredited by law enforcement experts because it can cause suffocation. And it shouldn\u2019t have been used, period.

Angelo was not armed. He has no history of criminal behavior. The police weren\u2019t even entering a crime scene. There were no reports of violence, just a family concerned over another family member\u2019s mental health anxiety. That reason alone should have prompted police to attempt de-escalation. Police are trained for that. But they failed.

Police should already be aware that their presence alone could be viewed as threatening, especially to someone who isn\u2019t mentally together at the time. If Angelo showed visible signs of anxiety, it shouldn\u2019t have been cue for police to use aggressive force, and definitely not restraining by knee-to-neck, a technique that should be illegal.

Police working with mental health professionals
<\/strong>Whether the Antioch police officers received training to handle mental health situations has not been stated in reports. But they should have been. In addition, all police departments should have a mental health professional on-call to handle situations like Angelo\u2019s where an urgent mental health crisis, not a crime, is needed to be addressed safely. A health professional could have prevented.

Angelo\u2019s death. Antioch is located East of the San Francisco Bay Area and certainly there\u2019s no shortage of mental health professionals willing to work with the Antioch police on some kind of program.

Late Response
<\/strong>The incident took place on Dec. 23. It took the Antioch Police almost one month on Jan. 25 to inform the public of Quinto\u2019s death only when a local newspaper started to ask questions about the incident. Given the heightened public awareness of police misconduct nationally, it shouldn\u2019t have taken that long. In fact, it\u2019s downright insensitive, a poor handling of public relations, and not a smart way to keep community trust in law enforcement.

Was Race a factor?
<\/strong>There is no evidence at this moment to suggest racism in policing occurred. But that must be investigated. The public should be made aware of this police officer\u2019s record, if he has had any complaints filed against him, if so, for what reason; or if he had been disciplined in any way that went against Antioch Police policy.

Transparency
<\/strong>Angelo was born in the Philippines. Was there a communication problem between the immigrant family and police? There are many unanswered questions that must be investigated.

We hope the Filipino-American media report on this incident and the Filipino-American community rally to demand transparency and accountability. \u00a0Make no mistake this was a tragic act of police brutality; completely avoidable with proper police training. Incidences like it must not be repeated. Policing reform must continue to be a high priority in communities throughout the nation.

Our deepest sympathy goes out to the Quinto family. We demand that justice be served.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPlease don\u2019t kill me.\u201d \u201cPlease don\u2019t kill me\u201d — these were the last few words…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[33,20],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=836%2C1314&ssl=1",836,1314,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=191%2C300&ssl=1",191,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=640%2C1006&ssl=1",640,1006,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=640%2C1007&ssl=1",640,1007,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=836%2C1314&ssl=1",836,1314,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=836%2C1314&ssl=1",836,1314,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=836%2C800&ssl=1",836,800,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=836%2C570&ssl=1",836,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=600%2C900&ssl=1",600,900,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=586%2C715&ssl=1",586,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=466%2C500&ssl=1",466,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=836%2C1314&ssl=1",836,1314,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=540%2C285&ssl=1",540,285,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?resize=375%2C250&ssl=1",375,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Editorials<\/a> Featured<\/a>","tag_info":"Featured","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Angelo-Quinto3-color.jpg?fit=836%2C1314&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6513,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions\/6513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}