ANTIOCH — A 30-year-old man died after experiencing a medical emergency while Antioch officers were detaining him, but police waited nearly a month to tell the public about the incident despite calling for an outside investigation.
The officers were responding to a Dec. 23 call for service by the family of Angelo Quinto, who died at a hospital three days later, authorities said in response to inquiries by this newspaper. Quinto’s cause of death has not yet been determined.
Antioch police Lt. John Fortner said the call came from a member of Quinto’s family. He said while officers handcuffed Quinto, they didn’t use physical force like a taser, pepper spray, baton, or strikes to his body. The officers had already called for an ambulance to place Quinto in a mental health hold when he began experiencing a medical emergency.
“They had the ambulance step up their response,” Fortner said. “(The ambulance) transported him to hospital, they stabilized him for three days and he unfortunately passed away.”
An online obituary for Quinto describes him as a U.S. Navy veteran who graduated from Berkeley High School and attended Berkeley City College. It says family and friends “will remember his great ambition, his abundance of grand ideas and many talents, and his constant strive for happiness and success.” He aspired to become a video game designer, the obituary says.
“He enjoyed fishing, drawing, creating, strategizing, cooking, and spending time with those he cared for,” the obituary says.
Police at the scene instigated a so-called Law Enforcement-Involved Fatal Incident protocol while Quinto was still alive in an abundance of caution, Fortner said. That automatically triggers an outside investigation by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s office and requires the officers be sequestered and interviewed. It also means Quinto’s death will be investigated at a public inquest hearing at a yet-to-be-determined date.
Fortner said police held off putting out a news release on the incident in part to protect the privacy of Quinto’s family and in part because his cause of death is still unknown. He said Quinto’s autopsy will probably not be finished for weeks, as toxicology results can sometimes take a while to come back.
“Right now there are several unknowns,” Fortner said.