from the miami herald
Teen restrained by police dies at hospital while in coma
An autistic teen died Friday, weeks after an encounter with police left him in a coma. Miami Police Chief John Timoney said an internal probe shows officers acted properly.
BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
A teenager left in a coma after an encounter with Miami police died Friday, as department officials concluded that officers did nothing wrong in handling the autistic youth.
Kevin Colindres, 18, had been in a coma since he was restrained by the hands and feet by officers following an outburst at his Miami home on Dec. 12.
His family's attorney initially said Colindres had been ''hogtied,'' his hands cuffed behind the back, a strap running from his ankles looped through the cuffs, tight enough to stop his breathing.
But the attorney, Stuart Grossman, admitted Friday that the ankle restraint was not looped through the teen's handcuffs -- the definition of a hogtie.
Grossman maintained that officers still cut off Colindres' breathing by holding his restrained ankles in the air as the teen lay face down. ''It's obvious from the extent of his brain damage that he had been asphyxiated by the police for quite some time,'' Grossman said.
An autopsy will determine exactly how Colindres died.
''The city of Miami Police Department wishes to express its deepest condolences to the Colindres family. We are conducting a very extensive and thorough investigation into this matter,'' Miami Detective Delrish Moss said in a statement.
In a meeting with Miami Herald editors Friday, scheduled before Colindres died, Miami Police Chief John Timoney and his top staffers said the internal affairs bureau's investigation determined that officers on the scene acted properly in dealing with the teenager.
He also provided a timeline of dispatched calls that rebut some assertions originally presented by Colindres' family, among them that officers waited too long to call paramedics.
The Colindres family is suing the department.
Officers had responded to the house at least once in February, calming Colindres without committing him to the hospital, police said.
The last encounter started Dec. 12 when Colindres' sister called 911 at 6:46 p.m. to report that her brother had hit her mother and was ''very violent,'' according to a recording played by police.
Miami Officer Kimberly Pyle arrived at 7:02 p.m. and began taking preliminary information from the family.
Six minutes later, she radioed a dispatcher: ``Get another unit here.''
A brief snippet of what investigators believe is Colindres yelling in the background can be heard.
At 7:11 p.m., three backup officers arrived and went inside with Pyle, according to the police timeline. Colindres soon calmed down.
His mother had bruises to her face and a shallow cut to the neck, Timoney said.
After Colindres' sister insisted her brother be taken to a crisis treatment center, Colindres stood up and tried to run away, police said.
''It looks like he got his foot caught in the base of the couch, goes flat down and smacks his head on the ground,'' Timoney said.
In the lawsuit against the department, Grossman claims officers threw Colindres to the ground.
Officers handcuffed the teen. Then they noticed Colindres had blood behind his ear and called Miami Fire-Rescue at 7:15 p.m., dispatch recordings show.
Grossman said he will review the dispatch calls. In earlier interviews, the family maintained that officers initially refused to call paramedics, waiting about 10 minutes until after Colindres' father arrived.
The officers led Colindres outside to put him in the back of a patrol car. He struggled again and eventually ended up face down and kicking, police said.
After an officer tired of holding his kicking legs, officers used a nylon device known as a ''hobble restraint'' on his ankles to keep him from thrashing, police said.
Pyle called the dispatcher at 7:25 p.m. to ask when paramedics would arrive. She was told three minutes.
The officer told internal affairs investigators that at that time the teen's father, Melvin Colindres, arrived on the scene.
Colindres placed a towel under his son's chin, spoke with him and noticed he was bleeding. In the next few moments, Timoney said, the teen ''clearly took a turn for the worse'' and became unresponsive.
Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue arrived at about 7:30 p.m.
The Colindres family and their attorney say officers pinned Colindres to the ground and held his ankles in the air, cutting off his breathing.
But Timoney said the officers -- two of whom had just arrived to relieve other officers -- never put their weight on the teen but were calming him as he lay on the ground.
He said an independent witness, a neighbor whom he did not identify, corroborates that.
The internal affairs office will handle the death investigation. Their final report on the officers' encounter with the teen is pending.
Upset at what he described as an unfair article and editorial, Timoney had asked to meet with newspaper editors to discuss the internal affairs findings.
It was scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday.
At about the same time, Colindres died at Coral Gables Hospital.
_________________
I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls-- but postal chess is one vice I don't have.
Ah, but is life worth living if you have to worry about so many things?
~Mikhail Tal~
World Chess Champion 1960-1961
06 Jan 2007, 6:31 am
- Damn Miami Cops!!
