Seven police officers are being investigated after a man they restrained outside of a Boston-area fish market died.
The officers handcuffed Francis Gigliotti, 43, near Bradford Seafood restaurant in Havervill on Friday night.
Gigliotti was captured on CCTV walking onto the middle of White Street and into traffic. The footage obtained by NBC10 Boston showed Gigliotti appearing to fall while exiting a store and hitting his head on a car.
The restaurant owner said Gigliotti was acting out of control, but some witnesses who recorded the incident on their cell phones said the officers restraining him were using too much force.
Gigliotti became unresponsive during the scuffle and was transported to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His fiancée, Michele Rooney, said he was having a mental health crisis and was not carrying any weapons.
‘Eyewitnesses say more than six officers restrained him—piling on top of him—while he screamed out for help and ultimately stopped breathing,’ Rooney wrote in a GoFundMe page for Gigliotti’s funeral expenses.
‘I am completely devastated. Francis should still be here.’
Rooney told NBC10 that witnesses who were videotaping before she arrived said that Gigliotti was hollering, ‘Help, help, get off of me, help me, help me.’
‘They had their knee on his neck and they were sitting on him. They were like, it was like a giant pig pile on top of him,’ Rooney said of the officers.
‘He had a heart of gold, he would never hurt anybody, he was screaming for help and their way of helping him is killing him by applying pressure on him?’
On Monday, Haverhill police Chief Robert Pistone Jr announced that the seven officers were put on paid administrative leave as the Essex County District Attorney’s Office reviews the incident.
The officers were not wearing body cameras, as the police department does not have them, according to Mayor Melinda Barrett.
Since the 1990s, the US Justice Department has told officers to roll suspects off their stomachs when they are handcuffed to avoid asphyxia, which can lead to suffocation and death.
Rooney said that the medical examiner told her it could take up to 60 days to determine Gigliotti’s cause of death.
Over the weekend, a vigil was held for Gigliotti and some protesters rallied outside the police department demanding answers.
Anyone with videos or photos from the incident is urged to share them with the district attorney’s office.
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $5,200 as of Tuesday evening.
‘We are now left to carry not only the pain of his loss,’ Rooney wrote, ‘But the burden of funeral costs and the legal fight for justice in his name.’
Gigliotti was from Haverhill, a suburb about 35 miles north of Boston. He was the co-founder of Teddy Bear Roofing, according to a Facebook post by the company.
‘We started this business together less than a month ago, after working side-by-side for the last four years. What we built was more than a company. It was a dream. And it was finally starting to take shape,’ states the post.
‘Francis was kind, hardworking, loyal, and full of life. He had so much ahead of him, and he didn’t deserve this. None of this is okay.’
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