Wrongful death suit filed against police
Lawyer alleges excessive force, negligence in ’18 fatal encounter with mentally ill man
LEOMINISTER » A federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court on Jan. 14 by the father of a mentally ill man who died in 2018 after an encounter with two city police officers, alleging the city and two officers used reckless and unreasonable force when dispatched to his grandmother’s residence because of his erratic behavior.
“They knew he was mentally ill and in a state of panic … but though he posed no imminent threats of harm to himself or anyone present, within minutes the officers transformed the wellness check into a death sentence,” alleged Hector E. Pineiro, a Worcester attorney representing the father of Kris Mailloux, then 39, who died three days after the encounter with the two officers, according to the lawsuit.
“We know he died from asphyxia,” Pineiro said Thursday in a phone interview about Mailloux’s death.
And a state medical examiner did determine that Mailloux’s death after the encounter resulted from asphyxia, but there were other contributing factors — cardiac arrest associated with an upper cervical spine hemorrhage and prone restraint, the use of a Taser during the encounter and a spinal column congenital defect, according to the court documents and the medical examiner’s report.
Pineiro also alleged in the lawsuit that the State Police and the office of Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. didn’t properly investigate the circumstances that led to Mailloux’s death, calling the investigation a “charade.”
While Early’s office was not included as a defendant in the suit, when contacted for a comment, it declined, saying it doesn’t comment on pending civil litigation.
Because of “big inconsistencies” in the death investigation, Pineiro said Mailloux’s father “wants to know what really happened,” Pineiro said Thursday.
What is known is that Mailloux’s mental health had been deteriorating since he was in his 20s.
On Jan. 14, 2018, the day
of the encounter, the Police Department knew of his mental illness, according to the lawsuit that details his descent over a year and a half before his death.
While his mental problems worsened, he was “somewhat functional” and in 2016 he moved in with his mother and grandmother in a house on West Street. When his mother died that same year, he remained with his grandmother, who was 94 at the time, and his condition worsened, according to the lawsuit.
Less than three months before his death, in October 2017, Mailloux called the Police Department and spoke with an officer who described him as nervous and fidgety, and speaking very fast about his best friend and exgirlfriend trying to “set him up,” according to the lawsuit.
On the same day he called police, a friend of Mailloux took him to Community Health Link in Leominster and told staff there he had been having increased paranoia and delusional thoughts, according to the lawsuit.
Mailloux told staff at CHL that he had stopped going outside because the “feds” were following him, but he would accept treatment by a psychiatrist, according to the lawsuit.
Less than a month before the deadly encounter, police were called to Mailloux’s home on West Street on Dec. 22 on a report that a man had fallen, according to the lawsuit.
When an officer arrived, he reported Mailloux appeared to be under the influence of an undetermined substance and that Mailloux could not tell the officer how he fell resulting in a head contusion, according to the lawsuit.
He was taken to HealthAlliance- Clinton Hospital’s Leominster campus and during the transport Mailloux told EMTs that the government was after him, and he was admitted for a mental health evaluation, according to the lawsuit.
Staff at HealthAlliance reported Mailloux had an altered mental status, was in an apparent delirium and he was admitted with a diagnosis of acute psychosis telling providers he was losing his mind, while exhibiting significant paranoia and believed the hospital was inserting a chip into his body, according to the lawsuit.
A psychiatrist diagnosed Mailloux with paranoid schizophrenia with psychosis, according to the lawsuit.
Because of an apparent head injury, a CT scan was done, which found no current or past injuries to his spinal column, according to the lawsuit.
Two days later, Mailloux was discharged from the hospital with a referral to a psychiatrist and while waiting for an appointment his mental condition continued to deteriorate, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that Mailloux often spoke to a friend of his several times a day and during one of the conversations, Mailloux told him his neighbors had machines that could watch him, he stopped watching television because someone was listening to him, and that he had unplugged the clothes dryer and filled it with caulking because he feared someone was trying to poison him with gas.
On the night of the encounter on Jan. 14, a home health aide who visited Mailloux’s grandmother twice a week to check on her got a call from Mailloux’s grandmother in which she said her grandson was not acting right, according to the lawsuit.
During the call with the aide, Kris Mailloux got on the phone and she described him as distraught and not in a sound state of mind, according to the lawsuit.
Mailloux begged the assistant to help him because he was “burning up” and needed to be taken to a “safe place,” according to the lawsuit.
After the call, the aide called police at 11:49 p.m. and told the dispatcher about the call and added, “I know you have episodes with him on the phone … lives with his grandma … you can hear him,” according to the lawsuit.
The aide then, in a three-way call, got herself, Mailloux and the dispatcher on the line, according to the lawsuit.
Mailloux can be heard saying during the call, “I am here radiation … it’s burning up,” according to the lawsuit.
The dispatcher asked Mailloux what he wanted police do to, and then the aide chimed in saying “his skin is burning, he’s off the wall, and he needed an ambulance,” according to the lawsuit.
The dispatcher then broadcast the following to the police officers on patrol: “Dispatch 384 West St. for a well check, the caller, a female, wanted us to check on a Kris Mailloux who maybe 2300 under the influence of something, he’s stay there with his 94-year-old grandmother and uhm, he won’t put her on the phone.”
Seven minutes after the call started between the assistant, dispatcher and Mailloux, Officer Juan Ramos arrived at the home at 11:56 p.m. with Officer Mathew DiPerri arriving one minute later at 11:57 p.m., according to the lawsuit.
According to the official homicide/death report from the Massachusetts State Police, when Ramos arrived he could see Mailloux’s grandmother through a large window in the living room and she appeared to signal him to go to the side door of the single-story home.
Ramos went to the side door and knocked. He could hear a male voice yelling when Mailloux walked in front of the door wearing a winter coat and told Ramos to go away, according to the State Police report.
Ramos, according to his police report on the encounter, told Mailloux the officers needed to check on his grandmother and were not going away.
Ramos again yelled at Mailloux, who had a large amount of greenish/brownish mucus coming from his nose, that he needed to open the side door when his grandmother approached, Ramos reported.
Ramos then reported he saw Mailloux holding his grandmother’s arms and was telling her to not open any of the home’s doors.
Ramos believed Mailloux had committed an assault and battery on his grandmother and was intimidating her to not open the door for the officers, both chargeable crimes, according to Ramos’ report.
Ramos began pulling on the side door to get in, when, he reported, Mailloux’s grandmother opened the front door for DiPerri.
With both officers now inside the house, Ramos reported Mailloux was lying down on the floor on his left side looking up at him.
Ramos told Mailloux to remove his hands from his pockets and stand up, which Mailloux didn’t do, Ramos reported.
As Ramos placed a hand on Mailloux to help him up, Mailloux began violently thrashing his upper body, Ramos reported.
He and DiPerri held Mailloux down with his back to the floor while telling him they were there to help and to stop fighting, but Mailloux began thrashing his legs attempting to kick the officers, Ramos reported.
“At some point we were able to roll Kris face down to attempt to handcuff him,” Ramos reported.
However, Mailloux continued to fight and he was then warned he would be Tased if he didn’t stop fighting and when he didn’t Ramos delivered what is called a five-second “dry stun” burst using the Taser to his mid back, Ramos reported.
Mailloux then made a loud grunting sound and stopped moving, Ramos reported.
The officers then cuffed Mailloux and when they rolled him over, he appeared “grayish/blue” and was not breathing and began CPR and called for first responders, Ramos reported.
What Pineiro and Mailloux’s father want are answers as to why the encounter turned deadly and why weren’t the officers involved interviewed in addition to Mailloux’s grandmother, who witnessed everything, Pineiro said last week.
“What really happened … and why isn’t there a timeline of the circumstances,” Pineiro asked last week, adding that it takes between three and five minutes for a body to turn gray or blue once the heart stops.
In the lawsuit, using the information provided by State Police and the Police Department, that as early as 12:03 a.m. and no later than 12:06 a.m. the officers were performing CPR on Mailloux, which was between five and eight minutes after the officers arrived at the scene.
Another Leominster officer who arrived at the West Street home at 12:03 a.m. reported that Ramos and DiPerri were performing CPR, according the officer’s report.
Police Detective Richard Shea, who was called to the scene of the encounter a little over an hour and half later, reported when he arrived he was told all “pertinent information and involved parties have been recorded and statements received,” Shea wrote in his report.
In fact, there is no mention in the State Police homicide/death report of the two officers being interviewed by investigators or of them speaking with Mailloux’s grandmother, according to the lawsuit.
However, according to the lawsuit, after Mailloux had been taken to the hospital, Mailloux’s grandmother’s home health aide came to the home to check on her .
Mailloux’s grandmother told the aide what she witnessed was “awful” and that she saw her grandson pinned to the ground by the officers, didn’t like what she saw, and that it looked like her grandson was being choked, according to the lawsuit.
Pineiro alleges in the lawsuit a State Police detective asked the medical examiner to consider other factors in Mailloux’s death and sent examiners a Reuters News Agency article that Tasers can play a role in a person’s death.
In a “supplemental report” included in the lawsuit, Mindy Hull, the state’s chief medical examiner, noted receiving the article and that it was sent “apparently as instructions to the OCME from MSP.”
Hull in the supplemental report wrote about the suggestion from the State Police detective.
“I discussed this issue with ADA Jeff Travers ( Worcester), and he concurred that the OCME should proceed with its usual approach to this case. I advised Dr. Stanley as well to carry on per routine,” Hull wrote.
In the lawsuit, Pineiro asks the court to render a decision based on eight counts, including unreasonable force by the officers; deliberate medical indifference by the officers to provide prompt access to emergency medical care to Mailloux; assault and battery by the officers; conspiracy by the officers alleging they prepared false reports regarding the circumstances and unreasonable force used against Mailloux; intentional infliction of emotional distress on Mailloux; a claim against the city of Leominster for failing to properly train, supervise and discipline its officers; a tort claim against the city for negligence and gross negligence of its public employees for negligent training and supervision of its officers; and violation of Mailloux’s rights related to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Calls to interim Police Chief Aaron Kennedy for a comment went unanswered.
Pineiro is asking for compensatory damages, punitive damages against the officers, awarding costs in the action including reason legal fees, and other relief as the court deems proper, according to the lawsuit.