In brief: Crane’s load falls; 10 injured
NEW YORK – A massive air-conditioning unit being lifted by a crane to the top of a Manhattan office building broke free Sunday, fell 28 stories and landed in the middle of Madison Avenue, injuring 10 people, officials said.
Two were construction workers, while the others were pedestrians and occupants of passing cars, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. All were struck by debris that caused minor injuries; they were treated at hospitals.
Police said the emergency call came in around 10:45 a.m. Officers who responded to the high-rise building a short walk from Grand Central Terminal found that the crane’s payload had broken free as it was heading to the top of the 28-story building. It plummeted to the street, shattering parts of the building facade composed of widening, stepped edges on the lower floors.
No charges against police in ‘I can’t breathe’ death
SCOTT, La. – A grand jury in Louisiana has declined to indict police officers who held a man down, with officers on top of him, and did not get up even after he told them, “I can’t breathe.”
Robert Minjarez Jr., 30, died five days after his arrest by Carencro and Scott police and sheriff’s deputies outside a gas station in Lafayette Parish in March 2014, the Advertiser reports.
Because grand jury proceedings are always secret, no details were available. Jurors reviewed evidence presented by the district attorney, who had been sent an investigation report prepared by state police and the FBI.
In addition, the newspaper quotes a statement from the FBI as saying that its investigation did not turn up anything the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Unit could prosecute.
A report from the Lafayette Parish coroner described the main cause of Minjarez’s death as “compressional asphyxia due to face-down physical restraint by law enforcement officers.”
It said contributing causes were cocaine toxicity and rhabdomyolysis – muscle breakdown which can have a number of causes including cocaine and other drugs.
The coroner’s report said video from the store and from police car dashcams showed that at least three or four officers remained wholly or partly on top of Minjarez after his hands and legs were cuffed. His upper body was on the street, and his hips and legs were on the sidewalk, the report said.
For about five minutes, the report said, Minjarez is heard on dashcam audio screaming, “Help! Help! Help me! Get off! You’re going to kill me!” The report also quotes him as saying “You’re going to suffocate …” and “I can’t breathe” three times. He cried and screamed, his voice becoming “increasingly muffled, hoarse and strained” while repeating “I can’t breathe,” the report added.