California to pay $24 million in death of man who yelled ‘I can’t breathe’ as CHP pinned him
California has agreed to pay $24 million to the family of a man who died after yelling “I can’t breathe” as officers pinned him to the ground and tried to draw his blood following a traffic stop, attorneys for the family said Wednesday.
The deadly March 2020 encounter came just months before the police killing of George Floyd as he uttered the same phrase to Minneapolis officers more than 20 times. Video of Edward Bronstein’s final moments in a California Highway Patrol maintenance yard in Altadena, however, would not come to light for two years.
Seven CHP officers and a nurse have been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Bronstein, a 38-year-old Burbank resident.
The $24-million payout, which will settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that was set to go to trial this year, represents the largest civil rights settlement in state history, and the second-largest in the nation after the $27-million settlement in Floyd’s death, said Eric Dubin, one of the attorneys representing Bronstein’s family.
“I have no words to say for what they did to my son,” said Edward Tapia, 73, surrounded by the attorneys and large pictures of his son at a news conference Wednesday outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. “These officers’ erratic behavior was inhuman.”
Bronstein was driving on the 5 Freeway on March 31, 2020, when he was detained by CHP officers who suspected he was intoxicated.
According to his family’s attorneys, officers took Bronstein to the Altadena CHP station to have his blood drawn after the vehicle stop because he blew below the legal blood-alcohol limit.
In a 16-minute video recorded by a CHP sergeant on a handheld camera and released as part of the civil lawsuit, officers order Bronstein to comply with the blood draw, and he initially refuses. Officers then begin wrestling him onto the ground, and he shouts, “I’ll do it willingly! I’ll do it willingly!”
“I promise, I promise!” he pleads, but an officer responds that it’s “too late,” and he and his colleagues kneel on Bronstein and compress his airway.
“I can’t breathe,” Bronstein says as officers pile on top of him.
Attorneys for Edward Bronstein’s family obtained a video showing Bronstein’s last moments as California Highway Patrol officers hold him and forcibly draw his blood as he repeatedly tells them, “I can’t breathe.”
After about one minute, Bronstein’s body goes slack and he stops responding. Officers can be seen trying to revive him. One calls his name and slaps the side of his head while he remains face-down, but several minutes elapse before officers attempt to deliver oxygen or CPR.
“What they did was nothing short of criminal,” family attorney Annee Della Donna said Wednesday outside the federal courthouse. “It was a conscious disregard for life. No one should be treated that way.”
A CHP spokesperson declined to comment on the settlement agreement.
“The California Highway Patrol continues to respect the judicial process, and we are unable to provide further comment due to the ongoing criminal proceedings,” the agency said in a written statement.
Two years after a man died in CHP custody, his family has obtained the agency’s video of his death, which they say supports their wrongful-death lawsuit.
Sgt. Michael Little and Officers Dionisio Fiorella, Dusty Osmanson, Darren Parsons, Diego Romero, Justin Silva and Marciel Terry were charged this March with involuntary manslaughter and assault under color of authority by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. The attending nurse at the scene, identified as Arbi Baghalian, was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Little recorded the deadly encounter in the maintenance yard at the Altadena station, likely for training purposes, said Luis Carrillo, an attorney for Bronstein’s family.
Gascón played the video when his office announced the charges against the officers and called their conduct “criminally negligent.”
The recording played a pivotal part in reaching the settlement agreement with the state, Carrillo said Wednesday.
“That video was a key piece of evidence in this case that shows the desperation of a human life struggling to live,” Carrillo said.
After a police killing, law enforcement agencies across California have been trained to keep families in the dark in order to gather information used to protect their department.
The video came to light when state attorneys revealed its existence during the evidence discovery process after Bronstein’s family sued. The state tried to keep the video under wraps, arguing it should not be made public, but a federal judge overseeing the civil case ruled last year that the family had a right to the video.
An L.A. County coroner’s office report did not conclusively determine Bronstein’s cause of death but attributed it to “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.”
Carrillo said there was only a “trace” amount of methamphetamine in Bronstein’s system and argued that the officers’ actions were the primary cause of his death.
Dubin thanked the Floyd family on Wednesday, saying their fight had become a rallying cry for civil rights in the U.S. after video of George Floyd’s death taken by bystanders kicked off nationwide protests.
“We believe that all Americans know right and wrong in our hearts,” Dubin said, adding that he was confident that jurors would have decided in favor of Bronstein’s family had they seen the video of his death.
In the first verdict of its kind since protests swept L.A. in 2020, a jury finds officer liable for injuries to a man shot in the face with a projectile round.
Bronstein was a reformed gang member, according to his father, and wanted to be an airplane mechanic. He was working at his father’s auto body repair shop.
Bronstein had three children with his longtime partner, Aundrea, who declined to give her last name for her family’s privacy. Outside the courthouse, her voice broke as she said that all she wanted was justice for the man she was with for 20 years.
“The only thing that has brought me some relief is seeing the people responsible for his death be criminally charged,” Aundrea said. “Our children have lost so much. They will never get back their middle school years, their father, anything. We just want justice.”
Times staff writers Richard Winton and James Queally contributed to this report.
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