A federal jury ruled Tuesday that four Chula Vista police officers used legal force in the death of Oral Nunis four years ago.
A Northern California business owner and immigrant from Jamaica, Nunis died suddenly in police custody in March 2020 after the officers forced him against the ground while responding to a mental health call.
Several members of Nunis’ family sued the city of Chula Vista, accusing the officers involved of using unlawful deadly force and targeting Nunis because he was Black.
Attorneys for the city argued the officers were just following their training on how to approach a person experiencing a mental health crisis.
The case went to trial in April in the federal Southern District Court of California. After less than two weeks, the jury sided with the city of Chula Vista, ruling the officers used a reasonable amount of force to restrain Nunis.
Chula Vista attorney Tony Sain said the city was heartened by the ruling.
“We all grieve when one of our citizens has a tragic ending like this one,” Sain said. “But we were very pleased that the jury could see through and really sort the facts.”
But an attorney for several of Oral Nunis’ family members said the decision was wrenching for the family.
“Roxie Nunis was shocked,” said Carl Douglas, who represented Nunis’ wife, Roxie, in the case. “I'm so, so disappointed that she could not find justice in this system.”
Nunis was visiting family in Southeast Chula Vista when he began experiencing a mental health crisis. Worried that he might hurt himself, his daughter, Kimone, called 911 for help.
Multiple officers arrived and restrained Nunis, forcing him against the ground. Body camera footage shows the officers handcuffed Nunis, despite him and his family asking them not to and saying Nunis would cooperate. They wrapped his arms and legs with an additional restraining device and covered his head with a mesh hood.
Nunis died after being taken by paramedics that night.
In an autopsy, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office said that Nunis had died when his heart and lungs failed in a “sudden cardiorespiratory arrest.” The San Diego County District Attorney investigated Nunis’ death, but eventually cleared the officers of any criminal responsibility.
Nunis’ wife, Roxie, and his daughter, Kimone, didn’t agree with the police version of events and filed their wrongful death lawsuits against Chula Vista.
As the case approached its April trial date, the circumstances of Nunis’ death in custody had come under renewed scrutiny.
In March, an Associated Press investigation found that Nunis’ death was part of a pattern of people who died after police subdued them using tactics that weren’t intended to be lethal.
In court filings, attorneys for Nunis’ family also pointed out that county medical officials had diagnosed Nunis during an autopsy with a potential case of “excited delirium,” a disproven medical theory with racist roots that is now largely banned as a medical cause of death in California. That led the judge overseeing the case to ban mentions of the term during the trial.
Ultimately though, Douglas said the jury never weighed in on the more in-depth questions about the role officers played in Nunis’ death. That’s because the jury’s primary ruling was that the officers’ overall use of force was justified, nullifying any subsequent questions.
To Douglas, a longtime civil rights attorney, the biggest lesson of the case is that it should be trained psychiatric professionals responding to mental health calls, not police officers.
“His daughter called (911) for help,” he said. “She'll be scarred for the rest of her life because the cop was poorly trained.”
