California settles with family of man who died in police custody for $24M

California will pay $24 million in a civil rights settlement to the family of a man who died while he was in police custody in 2020.

Prosecutors charged seven California Highway Patrol officers and a nurse with involuntary manslaughter in March over the 2020 death of Edward Bronstein, who yelled “I can’t breathe” when officers tried to take a blood sample and restrained him.

The Associated Press reported the attorneys for Bronstein’s children said this settlement is the largest civil rights settlement of its kind in California, and the second largest in the nation, after Minneapolis paid $27 million in the George Floyd case.

When announcing the charges brought against the officers and the nurse in March, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said officers who arrested Bronstein were “criminally negligent, causing his death.”

Officers took Bronstein, 38, into custody after he was pulled over in a traffic stop for being suspected of driving under the influence on March 31, 2020.

Bronstein initially resisted as officers restrained him to take a blood sample, and an 18-minute video showed the officers pinning him face-down while handcuffed on a mat.

He can also be heard on the video yelling, “I can’t breathe,” and officers could be heard saying, “Just relax and stop resisting.” It was not until 11 minutes after he stopped screaming that they began CPR.

The Los Angeles County coroner listed his cause of death as “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.”

Bronstein’s death echoed other officer-related deaths throughout the country, like Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man who died after an officer used a prohibited chokehold against him in 2014. Like Bronstein, Garner was heard saying the words “I can’t breathe” on video footage, a cry that prompted nationwide protests.