A man who died in West Jordan police custody in August overdosed, leading prosecutors to announce Friday that officers handcuffing him and rolling him on his stomach moments before he lost consciousness didn’t amount to “anything other than reasonable efforts to stabilize the scene” and get him medical help.
West Jordan police came into contact with Orlando Toro Garcia, 32, on Aug. 27 at around 1:40 a.m., after Garcia’s brother called 911 to report Garcia may be overdosing. Dispatchers also told officers that Garcia’s brother had reported that Garcia was “violent” and “looking for things that aren’t there,” according to a letter released Friday explaining Salt Lake County prosecutors’ findings.
When police arrived at the home near 6280 S. Barton Park Drive, Garcia’s brother and the brother’s wife were outside and told officers they didn’t know what drug Garcia had taken. They seemed worried that officers might harm Garcia, body camera footage released Friday indicates.
“He doesn’t have any weapons. I think he’s having a panic attack or something. He’s going crazy,” Garcia’s brother said in the video, “but do not shoot him.”
“I’d love to not shoot him,” an officer responds. “That’d be No. 1 priority.”
Body camera footage then shows officers approach Garcia, who is slowly writhing in the grass. They ask him to lie on his stomach so they can handcuff him and so medics can approach.
An officer tries to calm Garcia, saying, “We’re not going to shoot you. We’re going to get you help,” the footage shows.
Once Garcia is handcuffed, the officers turn him on his side and try to remove blades of grass stuck in and around his mouth. Moments later, an officer calls for medics as Garcia begins “seizing or choking.”
The officers then uncuff him and roll him on to his back to begin chest compressions, the footage shows, as the family looks on and Garcia stares unblinkingly into the sky.
The video ends as a medic arrives. Medics continued aid for more than 20 minutes, the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office letter said, but Garcia didn’t regain consciousness and was pronounced dead at 2:23 a.m.
A state medical examiner’s autopsy revealed Garcia died from a “mixed drug toxicity” of cocaine, oxycodone, buprenorphine and alcohol. The findings also cited “physical restraint and resistance” as a “significant condition,” according to the letter prosecutors wrote.
“While the physiologic mechanism of death during restraint is not completely known,” the examiner wrote, “an exertion such as this can exacerbate the stress already placed on his cardiovascular system by his cocaine usage.”
Despite this finding, the district attorney’s office found “there is nothing remarkable from the video footage even to infer that the actions of the officers were anything other than reasonable efforts to stabilize the scene so that emergency medical responders could safely enter and provide medical aid.”
Thus, the letter read, prosecutors determined the involved West Jordan officers — Matthew Collins and Nolan Butler — did not use unlawful force, declining to file criminal charges against them.
The district attorney’s office made this determination by reviewing video footage, dispatch logs, evidence found at the scene and the autopsy findings. Investigators did not speak with Collins nor Butler, who both refused interviews.
While the district attorney’s office ultimately concluded the matter was not an “officer-involved critical incident,” the letter said West Jordan police had invoked the county-wide protocol, which requires an outside agency to investigate police uses of force.
District Attorney Sim Gill, in the finding letter, commended West Jordan police for invoking the protocol.
“In doing so, [West Jordan police] honors the protocol’s intent and purpose of providing an independent, transparent investigation and review process,” Gill wrote.
West Jordan police did not immediately release a comment when contacted Friday afternoon.