Doug Martin’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in federal court, accusing Oakland police and an ambulance company of helping cause his death during a mental-health crisis. The complaint says Martin was restrained by officers, left face down with pressure on his back, and later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The suit was filed by Martin’s parents, Leslie and Douglas, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It centers on a sequence that unfolded after Leslie called paramedics on Oct. 18, when her son began experiencing a mental-health crisis and fled to a neighbor’s house two doors away.
That is why the case has drawn attention now. The family is not only alleging that Oakland police and FALCK NORCAL paramedics failed to act quickly enough, but that Martin’s death fit the pattern of restraint asphyxia. In the complaint’s telling, officers found him in the basement, physically restrained him and, while he was still unresponsive, one or more officers pressed on his back.
The family says the signs were there before he was taken to the hospital. Officers believed Martin was sleeping or pretending to be asleep, but the lawsuit says he was unresponsive and that at least one officer requested medical help while he was still in that condition. The family also alleges Falck Northern California paramedics arrived about 15 minutes after the call for service and did not promptly provide medical care when they got there.
That gap is the friction point in the case. If Martin was unresponsive before paramedics arrived, as the complaint says, then the question is not simply whether help was called, but whether the response came too late to matter. John Burris, who is representing the family, told The Athletic that they just want to know what happened, and he described a mother calling for help while her son was emotionally out of it.
Martin was 36. The lawsuit says his family believes restraint asphyxia caused his death, but the federal case now becomes the place where that claim will be tested against records, testimony and any medical findings the city and the ambulance company put forward. What happens next is a court fight over responsibility, and over whether the final minutes of Doug Martin’s life were marked by delayed care that should never have happened.
