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DUBLIN — In released body camera footage of the moment before his death, a mentally ill Fremont man appeared mostly calm, complying with authorities, painting a far different picture than the claims that he was being violent before left chained to a jail door.
Christian Madrigal, 20, was found unresponsive in his cell June 10, 2019, hours after his parents had called police for help getting their son to a psychiatric facility. He hanged himself with the chain authorities used to restrain him, which was found wrapped around his neck.
A lieutenant made the decision to chain him to the door using longer ankle restraints, for an apparent fear that he would turn violent or harm deputies. But the video shows Madrigal as calm and mostly quiet as deputies attended to him.
Adante Pointer, the attorney for Madrigal’s family, said that the video footage showed “no resistance or combativeness whatsoever.”
“Which, I think is indicative of the mentality of the jailers and the deputies. They’re hellbent on compliance and using force, which therefore makes them blind to the actual reality that Christian did nothing to deserve this,” Pointer said in an interview.
He said even in death, Alameda County is not taking responsibility for the young man’s death and holding the jailers accountable, referring to the district attorney’s decision not to charge any deputies.
“This was a young man that needed help but was met with force, indifference and brutality,” he said.
Sheriff spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said there is no policy that exists that allows restraining someone in that manner with those chains.
“There’s nothing in our policy that allows chaining individuals to doors as a formalized restraint,” Kelly said Tuesday.
“I’ve never seen that before, or since,” he said. “There are alternative and approved ways to safely restrain people. But chaining them to a door is not one.”
Instead, the sheriff’s office is trained to use a restraint chair, or take a patient to a psychiatric hospital for care. Kelly said the sheriff’s office is completing the internal investigation into Madrical’s death.
When Madrigal arrived at the jail, some deputies seemed surprised that he was in only for a citation.
“That’s it?” says Deputy Ross on the body camera footage released Monday. “You realize you’re a cite?” And Ross informs Madrigal he could go home in just eight hours.
When a nurse checks on him, Madrigal appears to clench his fists, which are in handcuffs. Then once in the cell, from one body-worn camera, he appears not to move. Deputies could be heard saying “he’s tensing,” although videos don’t clearly show his body.
Earlier this month, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley cleared any law enforcement of charges, saying the evidence doesn’t justify any criminal charges.
Madrigal’s family had called police to their Fremont home on the morning of June 10, 2019, asking for help for their son, who had recently been released from Santa Clara Valley Medical Center after an incident at the San Jose Airport days before. Madrigal had been acting erratically, and his family wanted him on a psychiatric hold to place him in the hospital once again. He had supposedly taken psychedelic mushrooms about two weeks before, according to his stepfather, who mentioned that to police.
Madrigal’s family wanted him taken back to the hospital, but instead, police took him to jail on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs. In the autopsy, no drugs were found in his system.
But once at the Fremont Detention Center on June 10, Madrigal is said to have become uncooperative and was placed in a WRAP restraint device and taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. A WRAP is a type of full-body straitjacket used by some police to restrain people.
Madrigal also had on a spit hood — a mask that is used as part of the WRAP device so inmates don’t spit on law enforcement. In O’Malley’s report, it says that once Madrigal was in the cell, he “stiffened his body in an effort to resist deputies” who were trying to remove the WRAP.
Deputies at first discussed putting Madrigal in a “Pro-Straint Restraint Chair,” but a sergeant said that removing him from the WRAP would pose a threat to jail staffers. Even though the metal chair was brought to the cell door, the decision was made by Lt. Craig Cedergren to instead use a chain meant for ankle restraints. The ankle chain, or leg iron, is a metal chain with ankle cuffs at each end. The chain itself was run through the open port of the jail door (called a cuffing port) and secured to the outside doorknob of the cell, still attached to Madrigal’s handcuffs.
Cedergren was placed on paid leave and remains there. A source familiar with the investigation said the sheriff’s office is seeking to terminate him.
In the video footage, Cedergren is seen going to check on Madrigal and could be heard saying, “Hey, hey. Wake up” from outside the door. He calls over another deputy, and through her body camera, she can be heard saying, “Is he strangling himself?”
“No,” Cadergren says definitively. “Couldn’t have. Unless he has the f*****g mask around his neck.”
As he opens the cell door, they see that Madrigal has the chain wrapped around his neck, and he appears motionless. Cedergren begins swearing, as they remove the handcuffs and chains from him and begin CPR.
The deputies were required to regularly check on Madrigal. But the district attorney’s investigation found there were “shortcomings in the care” provided by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. The decision to leave him “secured to the restraint chain, unattended, is concerning,” the report said.
Pointer said deputies knew Madrigal was at high risk of harm and injury to himself. Instead of following their training and rules to monitor him, they did so “lackadaisically” and “haphazardly,” Pointer said.
“How are there ‘shortcomings’ when there’s a 20-year-old man who had his whole life ahead of him, who is now dead?” Pointer said.
The attorney and family would like to see the deputies charged with manslaughter for their negligence in Madrigal’s death.
