The Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office has confirmed that 28-year-old Irvo Otieno died by homicide after he was violently pinned down and piled on by sheriff’s deputies and medical staff at the Central State Hospital in Petersburg on March 6. Otieno was a 28-year-old Black man whose violent death during a mental health crisis renewed calls for police accountability. His official cause of death is listed as “positional and mechanical asphyxia with restraints.” Last month, a Virginia grand jury indicted 10 people — seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers — on second-degree murder charges for Otieno’s killing.