Acevedo’s parents’ lawyers play Mattioli’s 911 call
Lawyers for Joel Acevedo’s parents held a virtual news conference Thursday to play a 911 call they say reveals more about how their son died at the hands of a former police officer than officials have revealed.
Michael Mattioli, 32, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide. Acevedo died April 25, six days after Mattioli put him in a chokehold during an off-duty argument at Mattioli’s house, where the men and two others had spent the previous evening partying together.
The next morning, Mattioli has told investigators, he awoke to Acevedo going through his pockets. The men argued, went downstairs, and Acevedo punched one of the other friends, Mattioli says, before falling to the floor where Mattioli put him in a chokehold and called 911.
That 911 call was described in some detail by a detective at Mattioli’s preliminary hearing in August, but not played.
On Thursday, attorneys for Acevedo’s parents, Benjamin Crump and D’Ivory Lamarr, played the recording of the call over a Zoom meeting. They said it proves the victim was not an aggressor, was asking to go home, and was in a chokehold by Mattioli for more than 11 minutes, longer than an officer had his knee on George Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis in May.
Someone tells a dispatcher they’re at a police officer’s house and someone is attacking them. Much of the call is hard to hear, filled with rumbling and scratching sounds and obscenities in the background directed at Acevedo.
They also called for the other men with Mattioli to be charged.
“You can hear that Officer Mattioli didn’t restrain Joel alone,” Lamarr said. “What was the caller doing all that time?” He said the 911 call was first requested in May, and that he obtained it in the past 30 days.
Maribel Acevedo spoke emotionally about what she called the “false narrative” from police about what happened at Mattioli’s house.
“Joel’s last words, ‘Let me go home,’ were not a threat. They were a plea. And they refused” to let him go, she said.
They repeated demands that the city release body cam video of officers who responded to Mattioli’s house. They say the city has declined to release the video citing the ongoing investigation.
But last week, when it appeared the city had decided it would release the video and other records related to the incident, Mattioli sued to block the release.
Mattioli quit the department in September after pleading not guilty to the criminal charges. He remains free on bail. His next court hearing is scheduled for March.