Family sues hospital, security, police, in man’s death
Port Arthur TX Jan 11 2018Â The family of a mentally ill Port Arthur man who died while struggling with police and security guards at a hospital filed a lawsuit Wednesday, alleging his death was caused by inadequate training of officials who shocked him multiple times with a stun gun.
“I want to know how he died,” said Patricia Delacruz, during an emotional press conference with her attorneys.
Manuel Delacruz died in August 2016, after his family took him to a local hospital out of desperation.
A diagnosed schizophrenic, Delacruz he hadn’t eaten or slept in days. He wouldn’t stop pacing and he exhibited signs of paranoia, so they took him to the Medical Center of Southeast Texas in Port Arthur.
But the 26-year-old’s family couldn’t admit him without his consent. His parents couldn’t get power of attorney on short notice and didn’t know what else to do, so they called the police to sign a court order that would allow an emergency admission.
That’s when things got really bad, they recalled.
“He said, ‘Ruth, take me home. They’re going to kill me. The police are going to kill me.'”
Later that night, Manuel Delacruz was dead.
In the lawsuit, the young man’s family alleges that Port Arthur police officers used excessive force and the staff at the Medical Center of Southeast Texas showed negligence in Delacruz’s death, which occurred at the hospital during a struggle with police and security.
Autopsy results were inconclusive. The Jefferson County district attorney’s office investigated the death, and a grand jury did not indict the officers who were involved.
The civil suit names the city of Port Arthur, the local police department, specific officers and the hospital, saying all contributed to what Muhammad Aziz, one of the family’s attorneys, called a “completely avoidable” death.
The police department and hospital did not reply to requests for comment to allegations in the lawsuit.
Delacruz, who died just days before his 27th birthday, was an amateur boxer and a Golden Gloves champion who had lived with schizophrenia for about a decade.
At the hospital, Delacruz – who told his family he was afraid of being raped – refused to take off his pants to change into a hospital gown. He also refused a blood test.
But his family maintains he wasn’t violent or threatening while he waited to be treated.
“He was not out of control,” said attorney Joe House. “He sat calmly for six hours.”
But when Port Arthur police arrived, House said, they and a hospital security guard tried to force Delacruz to take off his pants and submit to a blood test. The family says they used excessive force, striking him, putting him in a chokehold and using a Taser multiple times. At one point “there were five or six officers on him, all at once,” House said.
Delacruz died during the scuffle.
“We were never given a clear answer as to why this happened,” said Carlo Delacruz Jr., his brother.
The crux of the problem, House said, is that police and security agents aren’t trained properly to deal with mental health patients.
“These officers are supposed to be trained not to allow this to happen,” House said. “They’re not supposed to be spoiling for a fight. … They were there to help this man.”
The family doesn’t have an amount of compensation in mind, Aziz said; they’re more interested in changing the ways medical professionals and police deal with mental health patients to make sure a death like Delacruz’s doesn’t happen again.
“I want justice for my brother,” Ruth Delacruz said, “and to have some kind of peace, to know what really happened that day.”
