California reaches a $24 million settlement for the death of a man in police custody

The state of California has reached a $24 million settlement with the family of Edward Bronstein, the man who died while restrained by state highway patrol officers in 2020.

Bronstein was pulled over by officers on suspicion of driving under the influence on March 31, 2020 and was pinned to the ground by officers after initially refusing to submit to a blood test. In nearly 18-minute video of the incident filmed by a sergeant and released nearly two years after the incident, Mr. Bronstein can be heard telling officers “I can’t breathe” before losing consciousness.

According to Mr. Bronstein’s family, he had initially refused to take the blood test due to a longstanding fear of needles. As officers pin him to the ground, Mr. Bronstein can be heard yelling, “I’ll do it willingly! I’ll do it willingly, I promise!”

“It’s too late,” an officer says in response. Another admonishes Mr. Bronstein for yelling.

After Mr. Bronstein stopped talking, it took officers eleven minutes to begin performing CPR on him. By then it was already too late. Bronstein was pronounced dead, and the Los Angeles County coroner ruled his cause of death as “acute methamphetamine intoxication during police restraint.”

According to Annee Della Donna, an attorney for Mr. Bronstein’s family, the settlement is the largest civil rights settlement ever reached by the state of California and the second largest in the country’s history after the settlement reached by the city of Minneapolis. with George Floyd. family.