Merced councilman demonstrates chokehold, gets into verbal argument at George Floyd protest
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A Merced City Council member had a heated verbal dispute with organizers and attendees of event Sunday dedicated to highlighting the issue of police brutality.
An attendee captured on video Councilmember Fernando Echevarria demonstrating a choke hold, during a discussion on police tactics. But the event soon devolved into shouting between Echevarria and some attendees, and he walked out. The video has been shared many times across social media.
The verbal confrontation happened at a gathering organized by Merced People of Color and Merced Black Alliance. The event in front of the Courthouse Museum was the latest local action to take place in reaction to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Floyd died May 25 in police custody after an officer pinned Floyd to the ground with a knee to the back of his neck. The incident was captured on video. There have been protests and demonstrations nationwide and globally.
Sunday’s gathering included an open mic, march, vigil and conversation with City Council members. Supplies were gathered and donated to Merced Rescue Mission.
Gabriela Spiva, lead administrator and organizer for Merced People of Color, said her intent was to foster dialogue between the city and community.
She had invited members of the City Council to Sunday’s event. Council members Anthony Martinez, Matthew Serratto and Echevarria attended and responded to questions during a discussion moderated by Spiva.
What caused the confrontation?
The heated words between Echevarria and some members of the group happened after the councilman tried to demonstrate, for the audience, a police restraint tactic called a carotid control hold, which looks like a chokehold.
Echevarria, a former police officer for a college campus, had a member of the audience stand behind him and administer the choke hold. He told the individual holding him to do so “harder.”
Echevarria can then be heard on the video saying the words, “I can’t breathe,” — words said by Floyd prior to his death that have become a rallying cry for protesters.
Echevarria told the Sun-Star he did the demonstration to show how unethical the legal carotid control hold is, saying it should be banned by law enforcement. Echevarria said he actually couldn’t breathe, which is why he said the words.
“I’m totally against the chokehold, and I’m totally against anything that has to do with violence against black or brown lives, or any lives for that matter,” Echevarria said.
But attendees said that was unclear to them, and some felt the demonstration was inappropriate.
“To me, it sounded like he was making fun of it (Floyd’s death),” said Nicholas Cincotta, one of the attendees at Sunday’s event “I’m not really sure what his point was. Either way, it felt extremely disrespectful.”
Merced Police training has recently stopped including the carotid restraint, Interim Merced Police Chief Tom Cavallero said at a virtual townhall Tuesday night.
As dialogue continued, activists hit councilmembers with tough questions. Spiva said the public would occasionally fire back at their answers, but respectfully. Martinez said the questions were relevant and he had no issues with how he was treated.
“I think whenever you’re speaking in front of people, it’s very important to understand that you serve them no matter what you think,” Martinez said. “Even if you may be in the right and you want to stick up for yourself in that moment, it’s gonna come off as being overly defensive.”
Echevarria said that Spiva turned the audience against him by questioning him. Spiva said Echevarria wasn’t giving answers.
“They were very vague,” she said. “He often shifted responsibility from him as a councilmember to the crowd.” For example, Spiva said Echevarria turned the question back on the audience when asked what he was doing to support Black Lives Matter, which was insulting coming from an elected official with power to affect local change.
The situation created frustration for both Echevarria and activists.
Things became increasingly heated when comments by Spiva about feeling unsafe at times in south Merced were interpreted as disrespectful by Echevarria, whose District 2 covers that area of the city.
Audience members told Echevarria that he mischaracterized Spiva’s comments and others noted that south Merced needs more aid.
As more words were exchanged, Echevarria said he felt threatened and decided to leave.
“The crowd just became unruly, they came at me in all directions,” he said. “I felt threatened that I could not leave, that she (Spiva) was inciting a riot and trying to block my safe passage to my vehicle.”
Echevarria said he felt singled out from the other councilmen, and believes being a former cop played a role. “It’s just some really tense times now, and there’s such an anti-police attitude with some of the protesters,” he said.
Echevarria said that as he was leaving, Spiva shouted at the crowd to not let him go and that several people blocked his way.
Attendees can be heard in a video booing Echevarria as he walks away from the event while others yell “Go home!” and “Bye!”
“It could have been a very dangerous situation for me,” he said, noting that there was no law enforcement present. “When you block my way, that’s kidnapping.”
But Spiva said she was shouting to let him go. People can be heard in videos of the incident saying, “Let him leave.” She also noted that Echevarria chose to walk through the center of the crowd instead of going around.
After leaving the event, Echevarria sent a text to Spiva telling her he is pursuing legal action and to never contact him again, or he would get a restraining order. He said he would see her in court.
Echevarria, when asked about the texts, told the Sun-Star he’s seriously considering pursuing legal action in some form. He said he’s also speaking with Merced’s city attorney, adding that he has concerns about future city officials getting in a similarly dangerous situation without protection.
Spiva said she doesn’t think Echevarria is serious about pursuing legal action, and is only trying to elicit fear.
Program still ended on a positive note
After Echevarria left, Spiva said conversation was able to continue with City Council members Martinez and Serratto. “We were able to leave with almost a sense of a hope,” she said.
Martinez said that while things could have gone better, “It wasn’t as if nothing positive came out of this. It was still an OK event that had an uncomfortable moment.”
Although organizers do not agree with everything city leaders have said, Spiva said most have made themselves available for dialogue and have been fairly open-eared.
Councilmember Serratto said he thought the group, “to their credit, was looking for substantive answers. They didn’t want to to be riled up, they didn’t want to be pandered to, they wanted information.”
Serratto said most of the questions were about police use of force and whether to defund police. He said elected officials must listen, respond respectfully and act as “punching bags” if need be.
“When dealing with young people, oftentimes they question us (elected officials) in what we perceive is an aggressive manner but we have to understand that they see us as the powerful ones, and them as the ones who don’t have so much power,” Serratto added.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 10:02 AM.
