By Anne Hayes
syracuse.com
SYRACUSE, N.Y. ― The state Attorney General’s Office announced Monday that the death of a 23-year-old man during a police encounter was the result of an “accidental” overdose.
None of the officers involved in the incident will be charged in connection with the death of Alex Rivera, of the Syracuse - Liverpool area, the office said in a news release.
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Rivera died at Upstate University Hospital on May 31, 2023 after police placed him in handcuffs and held him down as an EMT gave him a sedative before he was taken by ambulance to the hospital.
The AG’s office released its investigation report on the man’s death Monday. It said the restraints officers used were not excessive.
The officers did not hold him down any longer than was necessary for the AMR personnel to sedate Rivera, it said. The officers did not kick, punch or choke Rivera, the report said.
The medical examiner ruled Rivera’s death was an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cathinone, and xylazine.
A forensic pathologist also noted the officers’ application of handcuffs and physical restraint of Rivera was not a “significant contributing factor” in his death.
The incident began around 2:08 a.m. when a 911 caller reported Rivera had barricaded himself in the bathroom of an apartment at 611 Teall Ave. and was “on something”, according to the AG’s Office’s report.
The witness called again at 2:39 a.m. , saying Rivera was tearing apart the bathroom and acting “crazy,” the report said.
A second witness called at 3:55 a.m. and told dispatchers Rivera was in a “psychosis,” the report said.
At 3:58 a.m. , nearly two hours after the original call, dispatchers asked an AMR ambulance to head to the scene, but to wait for police.
Syracuse police officers Simon Greenfield , Winston Wiseth and Brett Traupman arrived around 4:04 a.m.
In September, the AG’s office released the officers’ body camera footage from the encounter with Rivera.
When the officers arrived in the apartment, they found Rivera incoherent and lying on the floor of the bathroom.
After around six and a half minutes of trying to speak with Rivera, Greenfield and Wiseth handcuffed him and carried him outside to the front lawn of the apartment complex.
Greenfield told investigators Rivera, while still in the bathroom, told the officers to get off him and not to touch him, according to the report.
Greenfield told investigators those comments led him to believe Rivera would not go with the officers willingly and needed to be handcuffed.
Once the officers carried Rivera outside, they waited for the EMT and paramedic to approach.
They tried to keep Rivera on his side in the “recovery position” but struggled to keep him still, the report said.
When EMT Edward Armstrong and AMR Paramedic Jacob Noble arrived, Rivera was still struggling against the handcuffs and “wiggling” around on the ground, the report said.
Noble told the officers he would need to put Rivera “to sleep” to medically assess him, video shows.
The officers helped to hold Rivera down as Noble shot a syringe of ketamine into Rivera’s thigh.
No one on scene knew what, if any, drugs Rivera was on at the time, the report said. Witnesses speculated he was on a synthetic cannabinoid.
Officers continued to hold down Rivera as he vomited and slowly succumbed to the sedation, according to the report.
An AMR Patient Care Report said it was appropriate to sedate Rivera because of his combativeness.
Armstrong asked Noble to grab a mask to contain any spitting from Rivera, the report said.
Noble told the group he needed them to “look the other way,” and he placed a spit hood on Rivera, body-worn camera footage shows. Noble told an officer the paramedics used to have spit hoods, “but our medical director told us we couldn’t use them because we don’t have a protocol for it, so I just wrote my own,” video shows.
Greenfield said once the AMR personnel arrived, the officers were allowing them to “make the determination of what was medically needed for Mr. Rivera and what was best for him,” the report said.
Noble and Armstrong refused to be interviewed by the AG’s Office for its investigation.
After Rivera was sedated, he was carried to the ambulance. The spit hood was removed by Noble, video shows.
The body-worn cameras were turned off once the officers were out of the ambulance.
Greenfield told investigators he turned off his camera because he believed the “law enforcement activity” was complete, the report said.
Officers waited with the ambulance as the AMR personnel continued their assessment, the report said.
Rivera became unresponsive inside the ambulance, the report said. Officers helped provide chest compressions to Rivera until Syracuse Fire Department personnel arrived and took over.
There were no police in the ambulance on the way to Upstate University Hospital . Wiseth followed the ambulance in his patrol car.
The other two officers stayed to speak with tenants of the building, the report said.
Dr. Dianne Vertes , of the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s office, found Rivera had fatal amounts of both fentanyl and xylazine in his system, which could have caused his death alone.
Vertes said she did not know how the ketamine reacted with the drugs in Rivera’s system.
She ruled his death an accident.
Dr. Alfredo Walker, an independent forensic pathologist, agreed with Vertes’ findings.
He did address the potential risks of giving ketamine to an agitated individual when it is unclear what other substances they have consumed.
“It is well known that combinations of depressants and stimulants can result in fatality,” Walker said in a report. “Therefore, introduction of ketamine into an already primed toxicological environment for an adverse outcome would have further increased the risk of a fatal outcome.”
He said it is impossible to “precisely determine” the effect ketamine would have on the combination of drugs Rivera had in his system.
He also addressed the use of the spit hood. He acknowledged the potentially fatal risks of the tool, but said it was not a significant contribution to Rivera’s death.
He also ruled the death an accident.
The AG’s Office is required to investigate any death that could have resulted from the actions or inactions of police officers, and it can either close the case without charges or present evidence to a grand jury for indictment.
As a result of the findings, they decided not to file any criminal charges against the officers in connection with the man’s death.
Rivera had been battling a drug addiction for a few years, his sister Jazlyne Rivera told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard in 2023.
She said that her brother started using drugs when he was about 21 and his addiction escalated after they lost their grandmother, who raised the two of them, in a car accident almost two years before his death.
He had suffered an overdose around a month before his death and told his family he wanted to get better.
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