California: Two in-custody deaths at hands of police in one week

A mentally ill man died Sunday after earlier collapsing in Richmond police custody, the department's second in-custody death in a week.

Alan Arce, 51, stopped breathing about 3:30 a.m. Friday after a patrol officer handcuffed him on the lawn of a care facility in the 4200 block of Ohio Avenue. Police and paramedics performed CPR en route to a hospital, where Arce lingered on life support for two days.

"He was in front of the house, on the front lawn. The officer tried to calm him down, but he started to run," Detective Sgt. Lee Hendricsen said. "The officer grabbed him by the shirt, and he fell, but not hard."

Arce fell on the grass, and the officer told investigators that he did not hit his head. The officer rolled Arce on to his stomach and handcuffed him behind his back, police said. Then he stopped breathing.

Internal affairs and the Contra Costa district attorney's office each launched probes of the incident, as they did three days earlier after another mentally ill man died in an April 22 fight with Richmond police.

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