Pleasanton Police Video Shows Man's Final Minutes: Report

PLEASANTON, CA — Jacob Bauer, 38, of Pleasanton told the police officers who were restraining him that he was struggling to breathe shortly before he died, according to police body camera footage published by Bay Area News Group.

The video was released amid a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2019 by Bauer's parents and published Wednesday.

The video showed that multiple officers pinned Bauer in an attempt to restrain him after he stopped answering officers' questions and stared blankly ahead. Police later asked Bauer, who was shocked with a stun gun and placed into a restraint, to calm down.

"I can't," he said. "You're suffocating me."

At another point, he told officers that he couldn't breathe.

"No, you can breathe, that's why you're yelling still, OK?" an officer said, patting him on the back. "Just try and relax."

Paramedics gave Bauer a sedative after arriving but were subsequently denied access to him for eight minutes, Bay Area News Group reported. He could not be revived at the scene and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital, the paper reported.

The Alameda County coroner determined Bauer died of methamphetamine toxicity but also found that "probable mechanical asphyxia" from the restraint, morbid obesity and cardiac hypertrophy played roles in his death, the paper reported.

The Alameda County District Attorney cleared the involved officers of wrongdoing in the incident.

Bauer died on Aug. 1, 2018, after officers responded to a complaint about him causing a disturbance at the Raley's grocery store on Sunol Boulevard. Police said at the time that the staff was worried for customers' safety after Bauer began destroying bottles of alcohol and threw a shopping cart to the ground.

Bauer's family argued that his death was a direct result of his interactions with police, in accordance with the findings of a second, independent autopsy performed in September 2018 at the family's request.

The family's lawsuit alleged that officers restrained Bauer's hands and legs, put a spit mask over his face and used a stun gun on him several times without a legitimate reason. The family said it contacted police about Bauer's condition on four separate occasions leading up to the day of his death.

Rose Bauer, Jacob Bauer's mother, accused police of being insensitive and condescending and alleged that one officer told the family, "Jacob needs to hit rock bottom before he can get help" and suggested in one of the four encounters that the family evict the son.

Jacob Bauer was never diagnosed with mental illness because the family was not able to persuade him to seek help, his mother said. The family wanted to keep him close to avoid any incidents with the police because the family feared an altercation could be fatal.

Read the full Bay Area News Group story here.

—Bay City News contributed to this report