Manslaughter charges have been dropped after a man's death in a psychiatric hospital

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia judge has agreed to a prosecutor's request to withdraw charges against two people charged in the 2023 death of Irvo Otieno, a young man who lay on the ground for about 11 minutes as he was admitted to a state psychiatric facility was admitted to the clinic.

Dinwiddie District Court Chief Judge Joseph M. Teefey Jr. on Friday agreed to prosecutors' motions to dismiss involuntary manslaughter charges against Kaiyell Sanders and Brandon Rodgers, two Henrico County sheriff's deputies charged in Otieno's death. to drop.

“We knew the evidence and knew that the evidence did not support the alleged actions,” W. Edward Riley, a lawyer representing Sanders, said Monday.

Otieno, a 28-year-old black man, had been taken into custody at a state psychiatric hospital in the midst of a mental health crisis. Hospital video showed a crush of deputies and hospital workers holding Otieno while he wore handcuffs and shackles. He died of what a coroner determined was “positional and mechanical asphyxia from restraints.”

Otieno's death attracted national attention and sparked public outrage. Caroline Ouko, Otieno's mother, had previously said her son, a hip-hop songwriter, deserved justice.

“When they took my baby away from me … they took him away from his brother,” she said. They took him away from his nieces. They took him away from his friends.”

At that time, prosecutors secured second-degree murder charges against 10 defendants, but dropped charges against two defendants three months later. A year later, officials dropped charges against five other defendants in the case.

Prosecutors maintained charges against Rodgers, Sanders and Wavie Jones, a security guard at the hospital, but downgraded the charge to involuntary manslaughter.

A jury found Jones not guilty in October.

The local commonwealth's attorney said in a statement Monday that she reassessed the evidence following Jones' acquittal and was forced to drop the remaining charges.