Santiago (Chago) Villanueva

Every value below is shown exactly as Fatal Encounters recorded it.^[1]

Name as recorded

Santiago (Chago) Villanueva

Age as recorded

35

Gender as recorded

Male

Race as reported

Hispanic/Latino

Date of the injury resulting in death

April 16, 2002

Location as recorded

Bloomfield, Essex County5 Lawrence St Bloomfield NJ 07003 Essex

Highest level of force as recorded

Asphyxiated/Restrained

Agency or agencies involved, as recorded: Bloomfield Police Department

An agency appears here because it appears in the record's as-reported agency field, nothing more. Its presence is not a claim of fault or responsibility.

Fatal Encounters' description of the incident, verbatim. This is the source project's own third-party narrative, not this site's reporting.

Villanueva's garment factory co-workers called police for help with his epileptic seizure. They arrived and found him uncooperative and combative. Wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by four officers, witnesses described police shouting for him to speak English, and taking his foaming at the mouth as a sign of drug use. He died of "mechanical asphyxia following physical restraint". The four were charged with manslaughter.

Source reported by Fatal Encounters: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/homicide-is-ruled-in-death-of-man-in-police-custody.html (external link, as recorded in the dataset).

What does the Fatal Encounters dataset record about this incident?

Fatal Encounters records that Santiago (Chago) Villanueva died on April 16, 2002 in Bloomfield, Essex County, with "Asphyxiated/Restrained" as the highest level of force. Fatal Encounters is an independent, crowdsourced dataset of deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind; a record is not a finding of fault or misconduct.

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Which agency or agencies were recorded as involved?

The record's agency field reads "Bloomfield Police Department". Presence in that field means the agency appears in the record as reported, nothing more; it is not a claim of fault or responsibility by any officer or agency.

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Where did this happen?

The record places the death in Bloomfield, Essex County, on April 16, 2002. The address as recorded is 5 Lawrence St Bloomfield NJ 07003 Essex.

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Does this record mean police caused or were at fault for this death?

No. Fatal Encounters documented deaths that occurred during police encounters of any kind, including vehicle pursuits and crashes, suicides that occurred in police presence, and medical emergencies. This record documents that a death occurred during an encounter; it is not a finding of fault, misconduct, or wrongdoing, and it has no connection to the discipline records elsewhere on this site.

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