Officials say probe into man’s death ‘will not be rushed’

Family demands details and body-camera footage of death while in police custody, but officials stay silent

GILROY >> In the face of family demands for more answers in a man’s death during his arrest last month, city officials said Monday they will not release any more information about the case until their “complex” investigation is completed.

Steven “Stevie” Juarez, 42, of Gilroy, died Feb. 25 as officers were subduing him in part by using a stun gun and then applying a sleeper hold, police said. A chase had ensued after a report of an intruder in a backyard on Chestnut Street.

The city issued the statement two weeks after Juarez’s family and friends and social-justice activists made a mile-long march from the site where he died to Gilroy police headquarters, where they demonstrated and requested to view body-camera footage from the arrest.

“At this time additional information about the circumstances and cause of death remain under active investigation and further details cannot be released until those investigations are concluded,” reads a statement from the city.

Officials noted they are following Santa Clara County protocols initiated whenever someone dies during a police event or while in custody.

“As details about the investigation become publicly available in the future, additional media releases will be issued,” the city stated. “At this time there is yet no timetable for when these investigations will be completed.”

Reymundo Armendariz, Juarez’s cousin and program director for the Gilroy-based Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy and Services, said family members will continue to pressure police and the city to give a full and transparent explanation

for why Juarez died.

“We want to hold them accountable, for them to rethink, control their officers, and for them to rethink aggressive policing,” Armendariz said. “While we know GPD is employing a community-based policing style, this case is the end result of a confrontational style of policing.”

According to a police news release, officers were called just before 10 p.m. on Feb. 25 for reports of a suspicious person in a backyard in the 7400 block of Chestnut Street.

Police say Juarez ran from responding officers and while fleeing climbed onto the roofs of at least two nearby homes. By the time they caught up with Juarez, officers reported that Juarez was bleeding from his face and that a witness heard a noise consistent with a fall.

When officers tried to arrest Juarez, police said the suspect violently resisted and threatened them. The news release stated that officers used a Taser, “physical force,” and a form of neck hold known as a carotid restraint — where the sides of one’s neck are squeezed to cut off blood flow to the brain, as opposed to the now-prohibited choke hold that obstructs the airway — to bring him under control.

At some point during the struggle, the officers saw that Juarez “was in medical distress” and tried to revive him, and were soon joined by members of the Gilroy Fire Department. Juarez was rushed to an area trauma center, where he died.

Armendariz and other advocates for Juarez contend that they canvassed the neighborhood — where Juarez has family — and witnesses told them a different story.

They say Juarez was reportedly partying with a nearby resident and was on his bicycle when officers arrived. Juarez, they say, was not the suspect police were called for, but that he instinctively fled because he had a criminal record, history of drug addiction, and past hostile encounters with police. Armendariz disputes that Juarez fell before the officers found him, and asserts that he was pulled down from a tree.

The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office is still awaiting the final results from its autopsy, and said Monday that the official cause of death is still pending. Armendariz believes the officers’ use of force caused Juarez’s death, and said the family wants a second, private autopsy.

“We’re not going to let Stevie’s death be in vain,” he said.

In a statement, Gilroy Mayor Roland Velasco reaffirmed that the investigation into Juarez’s death is being done by the book, and that answers will come in due time.

“This investigation is complex and will not be rushed to a conclusion,” Velasco said Monday. “At the same time I am also confident that all proper protocols are being followed regarding this tragic incident.”