The family of Osaze Osagie, the man who was fatally shot by a State College police officer in 2019, has filed a federal lawsuit against the borough and 10 officers.
His parents, Sylvester and Iyun Osagie, are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages on multiple counts, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. Middle District Court of Pennsylvania by their attorneys, Andrew Shubin, Kathleen Yurchak and Andrew Celli.
‘Osaze’s death is not the story of misconduct by a single ‘bad apple,” they wrote in the filing. ‘It is the story of years of systematic failings by the Borough of State College Police Department to meaningfully implement and enforce common-sense policies and practices to protect the rights of people with mental health disabilities during encounters with police.
‘These failures led directly to and caused Osaze’s tragic death.’
Osagie was a 29-year-old Black man with a history of mental illness, including paranoid schizophrenia and Asperger Syndrome, who was shot and killed by one of three State College police officers who came to his Old Boalsburg Road apartment on March 20, 2019 to serve a 302 mental health warrant.
A day earlier, Sylvester Osagie received disturbing text messages from his son suggesting that he was preparing to attempt ‘suicide by cop,’ and stating that there would be ‘trouble’ with the police ‘in a little bit’ that may result in his death.
Concerned his son had stopped taking his medication and unable to find him, Sylvester Osagie contacted State College police for help.
That night and the following day multiple officers attempted to locate Osagie and a 302 mental health warrant was issued. On the afternoon March 20, Osagie’s social worker notified reported that she saw him walking in the direction of his apartment with grocery bags.
The detective and officer assigned to the case were not dispatched, but instead the officer identified as Officer 1 was sent and took the lead because he was nearby at the time, according to the lawsuit.
Officer 1 ‘was never informed of and never inquired about Osaze’s suicidal text messages, his mental health history prior to the fatal encounter or any of the circumstances that led to the issuance of the 302 warrant,’ the attorneys wrote
Two other officers who had some knowledge about Osagie arrived on the scene, but Officer 1, the most junior among them and with the least mental health-related training, continued leading the response.
According to the lawsuit, the three officers made no plan for how they would address Osagie and convince him to leave, what they would do if he threatened violence or how they would de-escalate the situation if it became dangerous. They also did not call Osagie’s father, who was looking for him nearby, or a mental health service provider.
The officers parked their vehicles away from the apartment building, covered the peep hole before knocking on Osagie’s door and positioned Officer 1 at the front with the other two officers behind in the narrow hallway — tactics the family’s attorneys allege heightened the risk of harm to Osagie and the officers.
After Osagie answered the door, he refused to come out and was holding a steak knife, Officer 1 told investigators last year. Osagie told police he wanted to die, would not drop the knife and seconds later charged at them.
Officer 2 deployed a Taser that was ineffective in stopping him and Officer 1 fired four rounds, three of which struck Osagie.
District Attorney Bernie Cantorna’s report on a state police investigation that cleared the officers of wrongdoing said the encounter lasted less than 30 seconds and that the officers who were attempting to back away were in a ‘life-or-death situation.’ An internal department review also cleared the officers.
But the Osagie family lawsuit claims that failures by the officers to make a plan or treat the situation with the necessary gravity led to the shooting, as well as alleged failings of the police department’s crisis intervention training.
Best practices of CIT, according to the lawsuit, call for a subset of officers who volunteer and are interested and specialize in crisis intervention to receive the training. State College police mandates training for all officers and so ‘all SCPD officers were deemed prepared to respond to mental health crisis situations, without any assessment of their ability to effectively absorb and operationalize their CIT.’
Officer 1, according to the lawsuit, had not received the training in six years.
‘Unfortunately, the borough’s inept and deliberately indifferent implementation of its CIT program training foreseeably failed to provide those benefits and instead created a heightened risk that people undergoing mental health crises would be harmed in encounters with SCPD,’ the attorneys wrote.
The lawsuit claims wrongful death, excessive force, assault, battery and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
In addition to the borough and the three officers who responded to Osagie’s apartment, the lawsuit lists as defendants seven other officers who were involved in the process of locating Osagie. Each is identified as a John Doe in the complaint, as the Osagies’ attorneys say they have been unable to learn their names.
“The Osagie family files this case today with deep resolve, but also with a heavy heart,’ the Osagie family’s attorneys wrote in a statement. ‘They are determined to seek justice for their beloved son which includes holding the Borough and SCPD accountable for their systemic failings in creating and maintaining a broken policing system that caused his untimely death. But they have a heavy heart because as long-time community residents, they are deeply disappointed that their extraordinary efforts to resolve these issues without resort to litigation have been rejected.”
Osagie’s death has lead to protests over the past year and a half against racial injustice and police brutality, as well as demands from community members, including the 3/20 Coalition, to reform State College police and mental health crisis practices. The coalition also has called for the officers involved to be publicly named and for an independent investigation to be commissioned.
State College has undertaken a number of measures for equity and police reforms, including planning a community police oversight board. A committee formed to develop recommendations for the oversight board is expected to issue a report in November.
The shooting also led to the formation of the State College/Centre County Mental Health Crisis Services Task Force, which has completed its draft report and recommendations. Among the recommendations are a countywide ‘co-responder model’ for mental health professionals to accompany law enforcement on mental health crisis calls, or to develop a program for mental health professionals and crisis workers to provide a first response when it is deemed a police presence is not required.
