{"id":225542,"date":"2026-03-18T17:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225542\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:33:16","slug":"lawsuit-claims-mentally-ill-east-bay-mans-death-at-hands-of-police-was-a-preventable-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225542\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit claims mentally ill East Bay man’s death at hands of police was ‘a preventable tragedy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond police officers ignored their training, trapped an unarmed, mentally ill man like an \u201canimal\u201d and unleashed \u201ca hail of bullets\u201d at him during a deadly encounter early last year<\/a>, an attorney for the slain man\u2019s family claimed Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The officers\u2019 actions are now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed this week by the family of 51-year-old Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, whose death in early February 2025 has since become the subject of a California Department of Justice investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s filing targets the city of Richmond and the two officers \u2014 Nicholas Remick and Jessica Khalil<\/a> \u2014 who opened fire that night. One of those officers, Remick, went on to kill a second person six months later, in a shooting that the Contra Costa County District Attorney\u2019s Office recently deemed justified<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the attorney for Mendez-Rios\u2019 family decried the police department for having \u201cunleashed a fury, a volley of bullets\u201d at a man who was clearly in a mental health crisis, \u201cessentially ensuring that he would not survive this encounter.\u201d It all happened as officers \u201cabandoned\u201d their training the night of Mendez-Rios\u2019 death, despite the fact there was \u201cevery reason to take time, maximize time and distance, to set up physical barriers and essentially wait him out.<\/p>\n

\"AttorneyAttorney Adant\u00e9 Pointer speaks as Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, listens during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat took place was simply a tragedy,\u201d the attorney, Adante Pointer, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. \u201cAnd it was a preventable tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not how we expect any decent human to treat another human \u2014 especially when that\u2019s supposed to be a public servant, and especially one who has sworn to uphold the law,\u201d Pointer added. \u201cIt has essentially been swept under the rug.\u201d<\/p>\n

The impacts from Mendez-Rios\u2019 death continue to this day, his family said. Mendez-Rios\u2019 son, Imer Mendez, recounted losing his job after the shooting, because he couldn\u2019t get out of bed and process the grief of his father\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about him every day,\u201d said Imer Mendez, 23, who appeared at Tuesday\u2019s press conference alongside his mother and Mendez-Rios\u2019 wife, Rosa Hernandez.<\/p>\n

\"ImerImer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, speaks about his dad during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claimed officers failed to appreciate the nuances of dealing with a man whom they had become \u201cfamiliar\u201d with, as a result of his well-documented history of mental illness.<\/p>\n

Mendez-Rios had a \u201ccordial and hopeful relationship\u201d with his wife while sober and stable, yet his history of addiction and mental health problems ultimately prompted Hernandez to obtain a restraining order against him, according to the family\u2019s lawsuit. She contacted police \u201cseveral\u201d times during their relationship for help with \u201cmental health interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

That order had been in place the day of Mendez-Rios\u2019 death, when he went to Hernandez\u2019s Richmond house after having \u201cagain fallen into the grip of addiction and was exhibiting behavior consistent with a mental health crisis,\u201d the lawsuit said. She called Richmond police shortly after 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2025, and officers spent the next three hours looking for Mendez-Rios.<\/p>\n

\"JoseJose de Jesus Mendez-Rios,51, was killed by Richmond police during an encounter near Carlson Boulevard on Feb. 4, 2025. His family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit targeting the city of Richmond and the two officers. (Photo courtesy of Lawyers for the People)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police finally found him along railroad tracks near Carson Boulevard and followed him for about 45 minutes, during which they claimed they saw him holding a knife, the family\u2019s filing said. At one point, officers said Mendez-Rios appeared to hold the apparent knife at his neck, as if he might harm himself, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit suggested officers \u201cneedlessly\u201d abandoned their training by \u201cfailing to establish a reasonable perimeter, failing to erect or utilize physical barriers between the officers and Mr. Mendez-Rios, failing to use one point of contact to establish rapport and communicate orders to Mr. Mendez-Rios and not maximizing time and distance in order to avoid provoking a confrontation and\/or the use of deadly force.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, an officer fired a less-lethal projectile at Mendez-Rios, after which another officer used a stun gun on him, the lawsuit claimed.<\/p>\n

Mendez-Rios then \u201cfled with his hands raised\u201d as the two Richmond officers opened fire at him, the lawsuit said. The officers together fired at least 10 rounds, several of which came after Mendez-Rios \u201clay on the ground motionless,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

\"AttorneyAttorney Adant\u00e9 Pointer speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. To the right is Imer Mendez, son of Jose De Jesus Mendez, and to the left is Rosa Hernandez, wife of Mendez. Far left is attorney Marlon Monroe. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

A two-minute snippet of one officer\u2019s body-worn camera footage of the encounter \u2014 which the family publicized Tuesday \u2014 shows authorities speaking to Mendez-Rios in English and Spanish, with one officer imploring him: \u201cI need you to drop the knife, bud.\u201d Authorities later determined that Mendez-Rios had only been holding a knife sheath during the encounter.<\/p>\n

Mendez-Rios\u2019 son criticized the officers who responded that day for escalating the situation by not designating a single person to speak with his father.<\/p>\n

\"ImerImer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, listens as attorney Adant\u00e9 Pointer speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Mendez-Rios was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s yelling at him \u2014 how do they expect someone who\u2019s going through a mental health crisis to be able to listen to all that?\u201d Imer Mendez said. \u201cIt\u2019s like trying to play Simon Says, with like six people yelling at you, and if you do something wrong, you\u2019re out. It\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Donald Patchin, declined to comment Tuesday on the lawsuit, citing \u201can active and ongoing investigation, and the potential for related litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The California Department of Justice is investigating the killing under AB 1506, a law passed in 2020, which requires the Attorney General\u2019s Office to examine killings by police officers of unarmed people. That inquiry remains open, and a spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment on it Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit marks at least the third time Remick has been named in police brutality lawsuits in recent years. One alleges he was present when two other officers injured a man during an arrest. The other says Remick and a second officer, Sgt. Alexander Caine, sent a man named Kwesi Guss to the emergency room with multiple injuries for filming police as they arrested another man for a high-speed chase.<\/p>\n

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/p>\n

\"AttorneyAttorney Marlon Monroe speaks during a press conference at the Lawyers for the People office in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. To the right is Imer Mendez, son of Jose de Jesus Mendez-Rios, and to the left is Rosa Hernandez, wife of Mendez-Rios. Far left is attorney Adant\u00e9 Pointer. Mendez was shot and killed by Richmond police on Feb. 4, 2025 after holding a knife sheath. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richmond police officers ignored their training, trapped an unarmed, mentally ill man like an \u201canimal\u201d and unleashed \u201ca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[184,861,7,8,392,723,138,332,1529,181,1016,100,143,145,144,408,72940,385,976,399],"class_list":["post-225542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bay-area","tag-bay-area-crime","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-contra-costa-county","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-east-bay","tag-east-bay-crime","tag-latest-headlines","tag-lawsuits","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-police-accountability","tag-police-killing","tag-regional","tag-richmond","tag-west-contra-costa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}