7 Massachusetts officers placed on leave after man died following struggle with police
Seven officers were placed on paid administrative leave after a man became unresponsive and died on July 11 following a struggle with police, in which officers were seen on video holding him face down outside a local seafood restaurant in a Boston suburb, officials said.
Video showed multiple officers attempting to restrain a person, later identified as Francis Gigliotti, 43, by holding him face down on the ground outside Bradford Seafood in Haverhill, a city about 35 miles north of Boston. He became unresponsive and was later transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the Essex County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
It was not clear how long officers were restraining Gigliotti or when he became unresponsive. Officers involved in the incident were not wearing body cameras, according to Haverhill Mayor Melinda Barrett, but video taken by witnesses showed Gigliotti crying out for help.
The incident occurred after the Haverhill Police Department received a call reporting that a man was "behaving erratically" and running into oncoming traffic in the area, the county district attorney's office said. In a Haverhill police incident report, detectives said they arrested a man accused of selling drugs to Gigliotti before his death.
Gigliotti's fiancée, Michele Rooney, told local television stations that he was experiencing a mental health crisis and was not armed.
"People that were there before I got there videotaping it said that he was hollering, 'Help, help, get off of me, help me, help me,' and they had their knee on his neck and they were sitting on him. They were like, it was like a giant pig pile on top of him," Rooney said in an interview with WBTS-CD.
In a statement on July 14, Barrett said the seven officers involved in the incident were placed on administrative leave as they investigate Gigliotti's death. The county district attorney's office has also asked the public to submit photos and videos of the incident to help with the investigation.
"The City of Haverhill mourns the loss of Mr. Gigliotti, a lifelong resident," Barrett said. "Mr. Gigliotti, his friends and family, and the public deserve a thorough and transparent investigation of his death."
What happened to Francis Gigliotti?
Haverhill police received a call at around 6:22 p.m. ET on July 11 about a man "behaving erratically," according to the county district attorney's office. The caller reported that the man, later identified as Gigliotti, had fallen on the floor after leaving a building and was running in the middle of the street.
Gigliotti also reportedly hit a car with his head before continuing down the street. Surveillance footage captured him moving in and out of traffic, where he was nearly hit by several cars, the county district attorney's office said.
"Responding officers arrived on scene and found Gigliotti behaving in an erratic and belligerent manner and called for an ambulance to assess his well-being," according to the county district attorney's office.
Before the ambulance arrived at the scene, the county district attorney's office said Gigliotti fled on foot and tried to enter Bradford Seafood. Police attempted to restrain him "for safety reasons" and Gigliotti became unresponsive, according to the county district attorney's office.
First responders tried to render medical aid, and Gigliotti was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. Gigliotti’s cause of death has not yet been determined, according to the county district attorney’s office. The medical examiner will conduct a full autopsy to determine the official cause and manner of death.
"When I got there and there were 7 or 8 cops on top of him and he's yelling, 'Help me, I can't breathe,'" Rooney said at a July 14 protest over Gigliotti's death, according to CBS News Boston. "It's something that will be etched in my brain forever."
Barrett said the county district attorney's office is currently leading the investigation, which includes interviewing all responding officers and civilian witnesses.
Man accused of selling drugs to Gigliotti before police encounter
In the redacted police incident report, detectives detailed the moments leading up to Gigliotti's death and the subsequent arrest of Joseph Hurley, 43, the man accused of selling drugs to Gigliotti before his encounter with officers.
The report alleges that about an hour before Gigliotti's struggle with police, city surveillance cameras captured him participating in a drug deal with Hurley. At around 5:09 p.m. ET, Gigliotti was seen meeting with a man who was riding an electric scooter, according to the report.
"As the male on the scooter approaches Gigliotti, it appears he removes something from his mouth utilizing his right hand," the report states. "It is known to this Detective through training and experience, that drug dealers and users place illicit narcotics in their mouths in an effort to evade police detection."
Following the alleged interaction, the report noted that Gigliotti "did not appear to be in a crisis, visibly intoxicated or unable to care for himself" as he moved around the area. Then at about 6:17 p.m., Gigliotti was seen falling from the steps of a building and appeared to hit his head on the sidewalk, the report added.
"He then appears to strike his head against a parked motor vehicle and is clearly in an erratic state of mind," the report states. "Gigliotti is manic, running back and forth in and out of the roadway, nearly getting struck by several passing motorists. He is seen attempting to gain entry into a random building and charging at pedestrians."
Witnesses told police that Gigliotti smoked crack cocaine inside the building and "began to freak out within seconds of smoking it," according to the report. Minutes later, officers arrived at the scene and attempted to restrain Gigliotti.
Authorities have not confirmed whether the drugs Gigliotti allegedly took contributed to his death.
Further investigation revealed that the man on the scooter was Hurley, who has a prior conviction for possession to distribute Class B narcotics, the report states. Hurley was arrested after police said they saw him sell crack cocaine to another person on July 14.
Death prompts calls for mental health reforms
During the July 14 protest, family and friends of Giliotti accused officers of mishandling the situation, CBS News Boston reported. Family members said Giliotti — who recently lost his mother and brother, and had been hit by a bus — had struggled with mental health issues, according to the television station.
"He needed support and nobody was there to do that for him," Giliotti's niece, Leti Torres, said at the protest, CBS News Boston reported.
According to Barrett, the city of Haverhill funds both a behavioral health clinician embedded within the police department and a social worker who works with police on drug intervention. The mayor added that the police department's behavioral response unit responded to over 800 calls in 2024.
"As we mourn, we must also reflect on how we help those in crisis," Barrett said. "I am committed to building on these resources and investing in additional training and equipment for the Haverhill Police Department."
On July 15, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts, called for a "swift and thorough investigation" into Giliotti's death. Earlier in the day, Pressley had joined Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Summer Lee in introducing two bills that "take a public health approach to public safety and support individuals in mental health crisis."
"Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to deliver justice for Francis Gigliotti — for in a just world, Francis would be alive today, at home with his fiancée and family—but we can and must provide accountability and policy change," Pressley said in a statement. "I look forward to seeing a transparent and independent investigation led by District Attorney Tucker so the community writ-large can get the answers and healing they deserve.”
Experts have long warned of the dangers of handcuffing someone face down
Law enforcement experts have widely discredited the technique of handcuffing or holding someone face down, as it can cause suffocation if a person is held down too long or excessive pressure is applied.
"When someone is restrained in such a way that their belly is to the ground, it’s called prone restraint," according to the Disability Law Center of Virginia. "Positional asphyxiation is when the positioning of someone’s body prevents them from breathing adequately, and this form of asphyxia is the reason that prone restraint sometimes results in death."
In a 1995 guidance on the use of force from the Department of Justice, the department stated that "unexplained in-custody deaths are caused more often than is generally known by a little-known phenomenon called positional asphyxia."
"As soon as the suspect is handcuffed, get him off his stomach," the Justice Department further advised.
The report also noted that a suspect may appear to be resisting if the airway is blocked: "The natural reaction to oxygen deficiency occurs — the person struggles more violently."
Several extreme cases of prone restraint have reignited calls for police reform and demands for systemic change in recent years, including the 2020 murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after a former Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck and back for more than nine minutes. Experts who previously spoke with Paste BN called the officer's actions excessive and dangerous.
"When somebody says, 'I can’t breathe,' that is a medical emergency and you get EMS to treat them right way," John Peters Jr., president of the Institute for the Prevention and Management of In-Custody Deaths, told Paste BN. "Because at that point, the suspect becomes a patient."
Contributing: Grace Hauck and Dennis Wagner, Paste BN