TRENTON — A Newark man who died in 2008 after a roadside struggle with State Police troopers was repeatedly slammed to the ground by those restraining him, newly obtained records show, a greater use of force than previously disclosed.
The records also reveal the primary trooper involved did not remember any training from the State Police academy or annual in-service sessions on dealing with mentally ill people, and never suspected the man, Kenwin Garcia, may have been mentally ill.
Those details and more were included in a deposition of the trooper, Victor Pereira, in 2012 as part of a civil wrongful death lawsuit filed by Garcia’s family against the State Police and Hanover Township, which dispatched officers to the scene.
An NJ Advance Media investigation published this month revealed differing police accounts of what happened, questions about how troopers treated Garcia, and conflicts of interest in the system that ultimately cleared them of wrongdoing.
The investigation also revealed that state authorities determined Garcia died from excited delirium, a controversial medical syndrome that results in heart failure. But four medical experts who reviewed the case for NJ Advance Media said the evidence showed that Garcia might have suffocated while being restrained.
The civil lawsuit settled last year for $700,000, but the state Attorney General's Office, which oversees State Police, and the family's attorneys have declined to release Pereira's deposition, citing a confidentiality order in the case and in the settlement.
A transcript of it was recently obtained by NJ Advance Media.
The deposition provides the most complete account to date of what Pereira said happened during the incident — and to Garcia, whose family and state authorities suspected suffered from some form of mental illness.
Leading mental health and disability rights advocates said the disclosures show the State Police does not do enough to train troopers to handle mentally ill people, and that it needs to partner with experts in the field to make improvements.
“The State Police is amongst the most professional and best trained police forces in the country, but they’re woefully lacking when it comes to being prepared to deal with people with mental illness,” said Phil Lubitz, associate director of National Alliance on Mental Illness New Jersey, the largest mental health advocacy group in the state. “They fall well behind a number of municipal police forces.”
In response, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, Paul Loriquet, last week defended the training regimen and said neither the office nor State Police had been contacted by mental health advocates claiming the instruction was deficient.
Two hours after NJ Advance Media inquired about the matter, however, a trooper at the State Police academy emailed the main office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness seeking training material, and he was referred to a local chapter.
Two days later, a sergeant at the academy, based in Sea Girt, emailed the Monmouth County arm of the advocacy group seeking the same materials, as well as a schedule of any courses.
“We are currently exploring training options here at the academy,” the email said.
THE INCIDENT
On July 15, 2008, Garcia, 25, was walking on the southbound side of Interstate 287 in Hanover when stopped by Pereira and told he had to leave. Pereira arrested Garcia about 10 minutes later on a bench warrant for failing to appear in Newark Municipal Court on two minor infractions, according to State Police reports.
After complaining of trouble breathing, Garcia kicked out a window in Pereira’s patrol car, and then, upon being moved to a second car, broke another window, according to the reports. Garcia was removed and restrained by troopers on the shoulder for about 15 minutes until he apparently stopped moving, reports show.
Police on scene later said they never punched, kicked or otherwise struck Garcia. But an autopsy found he suffered severe internal injuries, including a broken breastbone and ribs, two tears to his kidney and extensive bleeding.
Pereira said in the police reports that after the second window broke, Garcia, who was at that point handcuffed behind his back and at his ankles, was taken out of the car and held facedown in short, patchy grass and dirt on the shoulder.
According to the reports, Pereira said he pressed his knee into Garcia’s lower back, a second trooper, David Jenkins, pushed with both hands on Garcia’s upper back, and a third trooper, Thomas Burrell, held Garcia’s legs down. Jenkins said in the reports Pereira used his knee as well as both hands on Garcia’s back.
The reports made no mention of any additional force used while Garcia was held. The dashboard cameras in five patrol cars, including two with the best view of what occurred, were not recording, and another was turned off during the struggle. Those cameras that were recording did not capture the struggle.
THE DEPOSITION
During the deposition, however, Pereira said the troopers were at times “slamming him back down to the ground” with their body weight. At the same time, those on scene can be heard yelling and mocking Garcia, according to one of the dashboard recordings.
“We had our hands on him the whole time, and when he would get up we would slam him back down to the ground,” Pereira said, according to the deposition. “And I mean, we tried everything until to the point that we hogtied him.”
Questioned further, Pereira said in the deposition that Garcia never got to his feet, but moved his legs as though he was trying.
After being restrained, Garcia’s limp body was carried, with his hands and legs hogtied behind his back, to an ambulance, records show. Emergency personnel said in their reports they immediately assessed Garcia and found him without a pulse and not breathing.
He died a week later after being taken off life support.
A state grand jury found the troopers were justified in their use of force, but the Attorney General’s Office has declined to release transcripts of its presentation, citing court confidentiality. A transcript is the only way to know what evidence was presented.
Read the full NJ Advance Media investigation into Garcia's death
As part of NJ Advance Media’s investigation, three experts on police procedures said the force used against Garcia was risky, perhaps excessive, given his complaints about trouble breathing, his requests for water and the injuries he suffered.
Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former police officer, said the new details prove the force was excessive, particularly given that Garcia was already handcuffed and physically unable to escape.
“Multiple police with a suspect who is trussed like a calf at a roping contest is clearly too far for all but the most dangerous bad guys,” Kenney said.
Neither Pereira nor Jenkins was disciplined in connection with the incident. The Attorney General’s Office has maintained that they acted appropriately given the circumstances, and that their actions were reviewed and cleared at multiple levels.
“Had the troopers not acted to restrain Mr. Garcia, he could easily have run into oncoming traffic, placing motorists, himself and the troopers in grave danger,” a spokesman for the office, Loriquet, said in response to the deposition.
An attorney who represented Pereira and Jenkins after the incident has dismissed suggestions of excessive force, and Pereira and Jenkins have declined comment. As part of the settlement with Garcia’s family last year, the State Police and Hanover Township admitted no wrongdoing.
MENTAL ILLNESS
An image recorded by a State Police dashboard camera shows Kenwin Garcia sitting on the hood of a patrol car shortly before he was arrested and put in the back of the car.
Pereira said in the deposition Garcia “raised my awareness” on first encounter because he said he was headed to the beach, even though there was none close by.
“He was saying … stuff that seemed from my experience that he was trying to get away with something or trying to end the conversation with the police officer and be on his way, whether he was trying to escape from something or he had done something,” Pereira said, according to the deposition.
Asked if Garcia’s answer about the beach and the fact that he was walking on the side of the highway gave Pereira “any clue” that he might have an altered mental state, the trooper said, “No, sir, because I didn’t know what his intentions were.”
“I mean, he was pretty – we had a good conversation,” he said in the deposition. “For the most part from my training as far as I know he seemed all right.”
When Pereira, who had been a trooper about two and a half years at the time of the incident and about seven years at the time of the deposition, was asked if he recalled any of his training on dealing with mentally ill people, he said, “No, sir.”
Pereira maintained that Garcia was unruly and repeatedly resisted arrest and troopers’ commands, and that he was restrained for everyone’s safety. Asked if he had any concerns when Garcia said he was having trouble breathing, Pereira said, “If he had trouble breathing then he would have been more compliant in my eyes.”
The trooper also said in the deposition that at no point during his interaction did he have any concerns about Garcia’s physical condition other than the cuts on his face.
Mental health advocates said, had the troopers and police officers on scene been properly trained and remembered that training, it would have been clear to them that Garcia was mentally ill and needed help, not to be treated as a criminal.
“Walking on a highway heading to the shore should have been a red flag right away that you need to call in somebody else with some expertise to assess, and, if something happens, to deescalate,” said Joseph Young, executive director of Disability Rights New Jersey. “Policies need to be developed out of this rather than saying everybody did everything OK, because the result clearly wasn’t OK.”
Garcia’s family suspected he was mentally ill, perhaps depressed, though it is unclear from police and medical records if there was ever an official diagnosis.
MORE TRAINING
File photo of the State Police training academy in Sea Girt. (Star-Ledger file photo)
Under the settlement last year with Garcia’s family, the Attorney General’s Office agreed to recommend that troopers be given more training on dealing with people suffering from mental illness or defects, specifically by partnering with NAMI.
But in September, as part of NJ Advance Media’s investigation, the office declined to answer a question about whether State Police had actually partnered with the group.
Asked again about the matter at 1 p.m. Oct. 20, in light of the deposition, Loriquet, a spokesman for the office, responded the next day and said it and State Police “are constantly reviewing and updating trainings on the handling of mentally ill persons, and are working with the state Department of Health, state Department of Human Services, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, among others, to improve those trainings.”
Asked to clarify how state authorities were “working with” NAMI, Loriquet said, “the State Police recently reached out to the national chapter of NAMI and is reviewing the NAMI training modules to see if they complement or otherwise enhance” existing training.
A spokesman for the national office of NAMI, Bob Carolla, confirmed the State Police asked about training material at 3 p.m. Oct. 20. Lubitz, of the state chapter, said a subsequent request was made two days later. The Attorney General’s Office said State Police had already been reviewing publicly available NAMI training material and the requests were a result of the Garcia settlement.
“With or without the settlement, however, State Police would be assessing and improving its training modules on mental health,” Loriquet said.
Loriquet also defended the existing training, saying that since 2001, State Police recruits have received three hours of lecture and two hours of scenario-based training on handling people with mental illness. He also said the issue is included as a block in a 40-hour first responder training.
“Post-graduation from the academy, since 2007, every trooper is required to take a yearly refresher course on handling those with mental illness,” he said. “Finally, all troopers must take an additional course on interacting with members of the public with mental illness and developmental disabilities. That course was developed in 2010, and more than 1,200 troopers have taken it to date.”
Loriquet noted that the training program had been reviewed by a national group for effective policing, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, and determined to be “in compliance with the commission’s high standards.”
The State Police is one of 13 statewide police agencies in the country to receive the commission’s voluntary law enforcement accreditation, which touches on some aspects of mental health training. The division has not received the group’s training academy accreditation, which is a more in-depth analysis of courses and programs.
A State Police spokesman, Capt. Stephen Jones, said troopers are also offered an optional Crisis Intervention Team training, an intensive, 40-hour course recognized across the country as the leading mental health instructional program for police.
Jones declined to say how many troopers had taken it, however, and also declined to release the State Police curricula for the existing mental health training courses.
The Crisis Intervention Team training began in Memphis, Tn., with the goal of reaching one-third of police at every law enforcement agency, so that every shift has at least one trained person, said Edward Dobleman, state director of the program.
It’s now offered on a volunteer basis throughout New Jersey, he said, and more than 1,000 officers of the state’s about 35,000 have taken it. Lubitz, whose organization advocates for the training with the Mental Health Association in Southwestern New Jersey, said Garcia’s death shows the cost of inaction.
“Police are lacking the tools to do their jobs, and that’s why we’re calling on municipalities and the State Police to reevaluate their training and start establishing programs that will allow officers to effectively deal with mental illness,” Lubitz said.
Christopher Baxter may be reached at cbaxter@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @cbaxter1. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.