Incomplete Picture
Dolceamore appeared in distress when police encountered him outside of the St. Francis Medical Center, around 12 p.m. April 3, police said.
He was out of work because of the coronavirus pandemic and awaiting unemployment benefits, delayed by the historic number of claims in the U.S. during the health crisis, his cousin said.
Dolceamore and his wife had just moved to a new apartment in Clifton Heights Borough and were concerned about providing for their two daughters, one who was six months old at the time, Rambo said.
While there have been whispers of marital discord, if that was the case, none of it was evident in the “happy, wonderful things” the couple posted online, Rambo said.
Dolceamore was not known to suffer from underlying health conditions or mental disorders,
Rambo said.
He and his wife, Kelly Wilkinson, were once dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde of Delaware County,” the infamous American crime couple of the Great Depression, after they were caught stealing designer handbags from cars in Drexel Hill in 2015.
Cops tied Dolceamore and Wilkinson to the thefts through snowy footprints.
They were working to overcome their pasts and appeared to have turned a corner, Rambo said, but Dolceamore still feared police over his prior scrapes.
Relaying the account she gleaned from relatives, Rambo said a friend, still unidentified, picked up Dolceamore the day he died and dropped him off in Trenton.
Police were called after someone reported that Dolceamore had taken off his shirt and was shouting and throwing stuff at passing vehicles, Trenton Police Lt. Jason Kmiec has said.
Dolceamore flat-lined while he was being handcuffed as police attempted to take him into crisis, police said.
Footage from a bystander who was across the street from the hospital parking lot showed officers pumping the man’s chest. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Rich Rivera, a former cop and police accountability expert, reviewed the videos and felt the officers could have done more to deescalate the situation rather than turning to force.
“This is a really a sad video,” he told The Trentonian. “I see the guy, running into the corner like a trapped rat, with no shirt on. It’s evident this man is having a mental breakdown, a crisis, by his body language.”
Dolceamore was captured on video running through the hospital parking lot before an officer cornered him near a fence. The officer ordered Dolceamore to the ground as he showed his hands, like he was going to give himself up. He then shouted for help and ran around the officer, who gave chase.
The video cut to Dolceamore on all fours, with a cop grabbing the back of his neck and pushing down his head. Another officer arrived and maced Dolceamore in the face while he was on his hands and knees screaming for help.
Dolceamore bearcrawled away from the three officers, who quickly swarmed, smothered and wrestled him to the ground, the video showed.
A second video, just over four minutes long, picked up with the officers huddled around Dolceamore, who appeared face-down on the ground, with his hands restrained behind him.
That’s when one of the officers cocked back and struck him in the face, as two other officers pinned him down.
One of the officers crouched over Dolceamore’s legs and a second had his knee pressed into Dolceamore’s back. The same officer who initially struck Dolceamore reared back and hit him a second time, before a fourth officer arrived and positioned himself over Dolceamore’s backside.
The officers continued sitting on top of Dolceamore throughout the 4-minute and 9-second clip, after they appeared to have gained control of him.
The videos, narrated by the bystander and another man who called out the officers’ actions, did not contain audio of conversation Dolceamore or the officers may have had as the encounter unfolded.
Without findings from the autopsy, Rivera said it’s hard to know what caused the man’s death. But he said officers are trained to understand their “body weight could obstruct an airway or cause chest compression.”