Tag: Chinedu Okobi

Toxic environments, as evidenced by human exposure to dirty water or polluted air, are deadly for everyone. The police, or band of brothers, who fill quotas and shoot first are also toxic. To connect the dots completely, we must understand how police brutality and toxic environments are inextricable forms of violence that impact communities. We must understand how this violence intersects and demand an incompatible alternative to what we now endure.

Two days ago, I watched the police videos of my brother’s Oct. 3 murder. They were shocking, not just because I sat next to my mother as we watched my little brother getting tortured to death in broad daylight while he begged, “Someone, please help me!” and cried out,. “What did I do?” They were shocking because they contradicted, in every single particular, the statement that the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office released and to which San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe referred in speaking to multiple news outlets after my brother’s murder.

Attorney John Burris and his law firm have been retained to represent the mother of Mr. Chinedu Okobi, the 36-year old African American man who was unarmed and repeatedly tasered and forcefully restrained by San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies until he fell unconscious and later died. He leaves behind a young daughter, grieving mother and a host of family, friends and colleagues.