The state Attorney General’s Office released police video footage Friday of the last hours of a 51-year-old Paterson man who died in custody in June.
New Jersey State Police Trooper Marc Concato stopped the man’s gray Mazda on June 27 outside the State Police station in Totowa for using his phone while driving. Police then allegedly found a wax fold of heroin on the floor of the car.
The man became ill after he was put in handcuffs and while being questioned.
The attorney general did not release the cause of death, but said the driver suffered a “medical emergency.”
The incident remains under investigation, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. The attorney general reviews all incidents involving the lethal use of force by a police officer or when a person dies in police custody. The office also releases video footage, either from a dashboard camera or a body-worn camera, of each incident after the “initial phase of the investigation is substantially complete.”
The delay in releasing the footage was due to a wait for the autopsy reports, the attorney general said. The medical examiner received the autopsy report earlier this month, according to the attorney general.
The video shows the driver telling Concato he was on the phone with his daughter because he’s feeling sick, adding that he’s a diabetic. NJ Advance Media is not naming the driver for privacy reasons and because he was never charged with a crime.
“You need an ambulance?” Concato says.
“No, no, I’m good. I’m good. I’m going home,” the man replies.
After Concato runs the driver’s information in his squad car, he returns to the car to question him about an arrest a couple of months ago.
“Bro, listen, you’re acting so nervous right now,” Concato said.
The man said he’s not acting nervous, but rather his mouth is dry because he needs insulin.
The two talk about the driver’s prior arrests for drug possession, and he concedes to using heroin in the past. He says he’s not currently on any drugs and there are no drugs in the vehicle. As the man is talking to Concato, the officer says he sees a bag of heroin sitting on the car’s passenger side floor.
Concato enters the car to retrieve the heroin, but it doesn’t appear as if he exits the vehicle with anything in his hand. He then takes the man out of the vehicle, places him in handcuffs and asks him if he needs EMS to bring him insulin. The officer then seats him in the back of his police car and calls for an ambulance.
“I don’t want you dying,” he said. “We’re going to have EMS check you out. If you don’t want to go with them, it’s over with.”
Concato then grabs an evidence bag, walks back to the vehicle and places what he says is a wax fold of heroin in the bag.
“That is what I saw in plain view,” Concato tells the man. “That is a wax fold full of heroin. That’s why you’re under arrest.”
Concato and another officer return to the man’s car to search for more drugs. The man remains at the back of the police vehicle talking to another officer at the scene.
As the officer questions the man, his complexion appears to grow pallid and he then bends at the knees.
“He’s having a diabetic thing,” one officer can be heard saying to another officer. “EMS is on its way.”
The man appears to have difficulty keeping his head up and starts breathing heavier.
“Did you take meth today?” one officer asks him.
He can’t respond.
“Should we just give him Narcan?” an officer asks, referring to a medication that reverses an opioid overdose.
The man then collapses to the ground.
The officers gave the man medical aid, the attorney general said. He was taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, where he died shortly after 1 p.m., the office said. The man was placed in handcuffs at 11:30 a.m. It’s unclear when the ambulance arrived to bring him to the hospital.
The attorney general’s office said it reviewed the video footage with the family. His family previously declined to be interviewed by NJ Advance Media about the incident.
NJ Advance Media is not publishing the footage for privacy reasons. The Attorney General’s Office released the videos on its website here. They can be graphic at times and show the man suffering the medical emergency.
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Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com.