Tag Archives: Michael Marshall

You won’t see Michael Marshall in his jail death video because his body is obscured by five deputies killing him

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DENVER, COLORADO- Never mind the video showing the in-custody killing of trespass suspect Michael Marshall, says Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, “Most of Mr. Marshall’s body is not visible in the majority of the video footage after he is taken to the floor because the deputies bodies’ block the view of the camera.”

That’s right, it took five sheriff deputies to keep the 112 lb. Marshall floored. “He was surprisingly strong” said one of the deputies, which is the same compliment deputies paid to Marvin Booker, another 135 lb. 50 year-old African American man whose schizophrenic episode was treated with a lethal dose of dispassionate elbow grease.

The Denver DA announced today he had no plans to prosecute the dentention center deputies for Marshall’s sudden involuntary release from confinement. The DA ignored terrifying details from the earlier coroner’s report but adds previously unknown facts which will be revealed when the video is made public later this week. He reports that “OPN devices (nunchucks) were used on Mr. Marshall’s ankles” and “a leg chain was placed on his lower legs.” Michael Marshall “struggled on the floor for over 2 minutes before he went limp.” and it took deputies 13 minutes and 20 seconds before Marshall was placed into a restraint chair where nurses discovered he wasn’t breathing.

Ignored completely are the damning details listed by the medical examiner: the blood in Marshall’s lungs and pulverized muscle tissue consistent with beating.

Instead Morrissey concentrates on aspiration as cause of death. Did it cause Marshall’s death or did others factors contribute? By other factors he’s not talking about the 900lbs of deputees.

As with Marvin Booker, police experts blame not the excessive use of force but the victim’s exertions against the force, struggling to breathe under a pile of officers very specifically. I’m reminded of the adage, it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden deceleration at the end. Michael Marshall couldn’t breathe, he kept trying alegedly, and the officers weren’t going to loosen their hold until he was comatose.

The city attorneys office plans to release the jail surveillance video tomorrow. You won’t see Michael Marshall but you’ll see the deputies who wrestled the slight-built Marshall to his death. The DA report lists their names: sheriffs deputies Bret Garegnani, Carlos Hernandez, Smajo Civic, Thanarat Phuvapaisalkij, and Sarah Bautista.

Marshall’s death hasteners join Marvin Booker’s killers, deputies James Grimes, Kyle Sharp, Kenneth Robinette, and Sgt. Carrie Rodriguez, all still on the jailhouse team. Except Deputy Faun Gomez, who was disciplined for another excessive force infraction and now serves with the highway patrol.

The atrocity of Michael Marshall’s autopsy is what they already knew

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DENVER, COLORADO- Fifty-year-old schitzophrenic Michael Marshall died in the Denver jail in the same fashion as Marvin Booker five years ago. The city was made to pay out six million dollars for Marvin’s wrongful death but refused to discipline the deputies involved. Michael’s relatives await the release of security camera video to confirm not only another six officer pile-on, but it might have been the same personel. Actually the sheriff has admitted to the family that six deputies were on the scene, but that one of them sat it out. The sheriff would not confirm or deny the math of how many deputies were sitting on Michael Marshall when they induced his cardiac arrest. The autopsy reveals Michael asperated on his own vomit due to a spitguard placed over his mouth. The autopsy itemizes the effects of a brutal beating which left over a cup of blood in Michael’s lungs. But to me the most damning details were in the hospital’s initial diagnosis, kept from the public for reasons of medical privacy. When Michael’s body left the jail and for a week after, the news could only report that he was on life support. Unlike with Marvin Booker, the Denver Sheriff deputies hadn’t killed Michael Marshall. His family and the community awaited his recovery. But Michael would never recover. “Life support” describes his status as innacurately as “comfort care” describes the act of unplugging him.

To translate:
Michael Marshall arrived at the hospital effectively brain dead, not breathing, his body already acidifying, and his muscle tissues tenderized, ie breaking down. These are points of no return which should be recognizable to reporters on the crime beat, and likely to detectives and law enforcement managers who’ve seen this kind of thing regularly. The Denver public would know that it sees this regularly except that it’s lied to about what Denver police and sheriff deputies are doing regularly.

Though the coroner begins the paragraph noting Michael’s history of polysubstance abuse, without implying it had import, he closes the review with the detail that a pee test showed Michael was clean.

Police toss brutality victims and video evidence in box with Schrodinger’s cat

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Michael MarshallDENVER, COLORADO- Denver jailers killed 50-yr-old schitzophrenic Michael Marshall in the exact manner they killed Marvin Booker five years ago except this time they kept it under wraps. By throwing their victim’s body in with Schrodinger’s cat. Authorities in Denver and Minneapolis have learned you can have your cake and kill it too, so long as you postpone the public learning what the outcome was. It’s the lesson of Schrodinger’s Cat. If you kill an unarmed man, for god’s sake don’t drape him in a shroud. Ship his body to the hospital under guard and stick it on life support. Medical privacy laws forbid health workers from disclosing the patient’s fate. Minneapolis police held off public outrage over the shooting of Jamar Clark with the same technique: say he’s on life support until it’s no longer plausible. Schrodinger’s box works for damning videos too. Until the public can open the box, hopefully never, the police did AND didn’t commit the atrocity.