OKLAHOMA FATHER DIES IN
POLICE BRUTALITY
(CNN) -- It was supposed to be a fun family outing to the
movies, but then Nair Rodriguez' 19-year-old daughter got under her skin. They
fought, she said, and she slapped her daughter.
Moments later, police arrived on a domestic dispute call
at the Moore , Oklahoma , theater and confronted -- not Nair
Rodriguez -- but her husband Luis. They took him down, and after the encounter
on February 15, he was dead.
Cell phone video taken by his wife and released this week
shows the final minutes of the takedown.
Nair Rodriguez accuses officers of brutality. Police say
they were following protocol and used no undue force.
Argument, upset
The mother-daughter spat upset the mother so badly that
she bolted for the family car. Her husband Luis followed her to calm her down,
family attorney Michael Brooks-Jimenez told reporters.
That's when a group of police and theater security
officers turned up, he said.
What happened next is disputed.
His wife has said officers beat Luis Rodriguez, CNN
affiliate KFOR reported. But Moore Police Chief Jerry Stillings calls the
actions of his officers "reasonable."
He would not go in to much detail and said an
investigation is underway. But he mentioned that police used pepper spray, CNN
affiliate KOCO reported.
Luis Rodriguez ended up on the ground with five men
pinning him down, and wife Nair pulled out a cell phone.
Her fearful cries fill the recording.
"Luis! Luis!" she calls out frantically. Her
husband does not respond, does not appear to move.
She calls to the officers to assure her that he is
alright.
"Please somebody tell me that he is alive," she
implores. "He is not moving."
The officers appear calm. One tells her that he will talk
to her, once they are finished securing her husband.
Then one walks over to the camera. He tells her that
police have called in a medical unit to check on her husband.
It wasn't him
The officer says police received a call about domestic
violence before confronting her husband.
It wasn't him, Nair Rodriguez tells him. "I hit my
daughter," she says. She wants to know why they have pinned down her
husband.
"He refused to give his ID," the officer said.
"He got combative."
She notices blood on the officer. "Is he
bleeding?" She demands to know.
"I'm bleeding; that's me," the officer says.
An ambulance can be seen in the background, and Luis
Rodriguez is lifted onto a stretcher.
Cause of death
An autopsy may reveal more about why Luis Rodriguez died,
and surveillance camera footage of the encounter in the movie theater parking
lot may reveal what happened before his wife pulled out her cell phone camera.
What police describe as normal procedure, lawyer
Brooks-Jimenez describes it as something brutal and possibly deadly.
Pepper spray to the face and the weight of five men on
top of him.
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