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Family of Man Who Died in NYPD Custody to Sue City for $33M

By Gwynne Hogan | June 22, 2015 2:40pm
 The girlfriend of a man who died after being tasered on Monday says he was brutally beaten before his death.
Mario Ocasio Death Update
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THE BRONX — The family of the ex-con who died in police custody after being stun-gunned by police plans to sue the city for $33 million, claiming officers caused his death.

Mario Ocasio, 51, went into cardiac arrest and died on the way to the hospital after police said he resisted arrest when they were called to their University Heights apartment on June 8 by his frightened girlfriend.

Police originally said Ocasio threatened them with a pair of scissors, but now the NYPD is investigating that claim.

“All I want is justice, you know what I mean. I want him to be laid out in peace,” his girlfriend Geneice Lloyd, 49, said. “It’s eating me up inside... All I wanted was EMS to come check him out and take him to the hospital...They done killed him up in the house.”

Police were called to Ocasio's apartment at 2263 Loring Place by Lloyd, after she believed he smoked synthetic marijuana and started acting violently, she said. 

Lloyd said that he had calmed down by the time police arrived, but claims they still sprayed him with pepper-spray, used a stun-gun on him and beat him with their batons.

After police cuffed him and put him in an ambulance, he went into cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said.

“They kept beating him, He wasn’t even moving any more,” Lloyd said. 

The medical examiner's office has not yet determined Ocasio's cause of death. Family members said Ocasio had chronic asthma but no other health problems that they knew of.

Synthetic marijuana has been linked to an upsurge in hospitalizations in recent months. So far it hasn't been linked to any deaths but it has been known to cause heart attacks in some users, according to the city's Health Department.

This is not Ocasio's only run-in with the law. When he was 22, he was convicted of attempted murder and served twenty years in state prison, correctional records show. He was released in 2005.

The NYPD would not comment on the notice to sue, but defended the officers response.

"He was fighting with officers, the officers tried to calm him," the spokesman said. "He kept fighting."

Meanwhile Lloyd and her nephew, Kashif Osagie, 30, said they recorded the arrest on a cellphone but the recording was confiscated at the precinct.

"We want justice," said Nathan Cruz, 27, Ocasio's nephew. "I have no problems with cops themselves...I have cops that are in my family. I just want to know why was my uncle taken down the way he was taken down."