Updated at 12:48 with additional comments.
A video released this week by Vermont State Police shows that after a Rutland City Police corporal shot and killed a man who was later found to be unarmed in a McDonald’s restroom this summer, no one rendered aid to the wounded man for at least two minutes.
As Jonathan Mansilla was lying face down in a pool of blood for about a minute in a hallway just out of the restroom, Cpl. Christopher Rose pulled Mansilla’s hands around his back and handcuffed him, the video shows.
“Why did they just sit there and wait?” David Heria, Mansilla’s nephew, asked after viewing the video. “He didn’t even try to take a pulse.”
“Pretty much nobody tended to him and they weren’t worried,” Heria added. “He didn’t even try to take a pulse.”
The 4-minute, 33-second video taken from a McDonald’s surveillance camera was among nine videos released by the Vermont State Police this week following public information requests by VTDigger. Three of the videos are from cellphones taken from people inside the restaurant and six are from surveillance cameras inside McDonald’s.
The videos show various views inside the restaurant on the afternoon of Aug. 25, when the shooting took place.
VTDigger had also requested from Vermont State Police other material, including reports and witness statements, but officials said they needed more time to fulfill that portion of the request.
Rose had followed the 33-year old Mansilla, of Coral Gables, Florida, into the restaurant bathroom after investigators say Mansilla crashed his car at a nearby intersection while fleeing a car crash in Rutland.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office last month ruled the shooting was justified because Rose “reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily harm” when Mansilla charged toward him holding something above his head.
It was later determined that Mansilla was not armed, but was holding a cellphone in his hand, according to investigators.
In response to a question on Wednesday about the officers’ actions around rendering aid to Mansilla, Vermont State Police Capt. Scott Dunlap replied, “I’d have to look at it again, I don’t think it was a concern.”
Dunlap, head of the state police Major Crime Unit that investigated the fatal shooting, said it had been a while since he had reviewed the video.
Rutland County Sheriff David Fox, reached Wednesday, said he had not yet seen the video taken from inside McDonald’s and he was not at the restaurant at the time of the shooting.
“I’m not sure of the time frame of when the attempts to render aid were,” Fox said, calling it a chaotic scene.
Dunlap said officers need to first make sure the scene is safe before rendering aid — and Fox said that’s his department’s policy.
“At that point you have to do what you can to maintain life,” Fox said. “From what I understand it was a pretty dire situation and it was indicated fairly quickly that the person was mortally wounded.”
The sheriff department’s “Duty of Care” policy mandates, in part, that any person in an officer’s care who “sustains an injury, becomes unconscious, displays a further altered mental status, or states that s/he is injured,” must be provided “appropriate medical attention.” And that “officers will provide care commensurate with their training and experience.”
Rutland City Police Chief Brian Kilcullen declined to comment Wednesday on the video. “I am not going to comment on any analysis of the video,” he said.
Phone messages left for Rose and his attorney Wednesday were not returned.
None of the videos released this week directly shows Rose shooting Mansilla, though the video that is 4 minutes and 33 seconds long captures the moments immediately after the shooting.
In that video, there is no sound, only images. Mansilla’s face, as well as the faces of bystanders inside the restaurant such as staff and customers, had been pixelated in the video as part of the Vermont State Police’s redactions.
The surveillance camera for the video was positioned above the cashiers’ counter, showing the counter and a short hallway to the right where the bathrooms are located. Two doors on the right side of the hallway are visible, but the door to the bathroom on the left side — where the confrontation and shooting took place — is obscured by a wall.
At the 57-second mark in the video, Mansilla can be seen running past the cashiers’ counter and down the short hallway before heading into the bathroom.
About six seconds later, Rose enters the hallway but does not go into the bathroom, and appears to talk into a radio.
Although neither the bathroom interior nor its entry door is visible, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office said in a written account last month that Rose tried to enter the bathroom but “was unable to open the door due to apparent resistance from the other side of the door.”
At the 1-minute, 32-second mark, Rose can be seen on the video entering the bathroom.
About 11 seconds later, Rose is shown backing out of the restroom, with a firearm in one hand, as Mansilla stumbles out of the restroom and collapses onto the floor in the hallway while blood splatters.
What appears to be a cellphone and its dislodged battery can be seen strewn on the ground in front of Mansilla.
Investigators have said Rose fired three rounds from his department-issued handgun, striking Mansilla twice in the chest.
Rutland City Police do not wear body cameras. No one else was in the bathroom at the time of the shooting, investigators have said.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, a witness who was in the McDonald’s was able to see down the hallway and into the restroom. The video shows a person who appears to be the witness briefly come into frame as he’s approaching the entrance to the hallway right before Rose and Mansilla came out of the bathroom.
That witness, according to the attorney general’s finding, reported hearing Rose “aggressively” announce “Rutland City Police; come out” a couple of times. The witness reported seeing that Rose had his gun drawn and pointed forward, and that Mansilla charged at Rose with his hand in the air while exhibiting a “battle cry,” according to the attorney general’s finding.
Also, according to the attorney general’s finding, Rose had entered the restroom with his firearm drawn and found Mansilla locked in a stall.
“Corporal Rose identified himself again as an officer and commanded Mr. Mansilla to show him his hands. Mr. Mansilla made no response,” according to the attorney general’s office’s statement. “Approximately 9 seconds later, Mr. Mansilla abruptly exited the stall and ran towards Corporal Rose, while screaming, with his arm raised around head level and carrying in his hand what Corporal Rose believed to be a weapon.”
In the seconds after the shooting — starting around the 1-minute, 45-second mark of the video — Mansilla can be seen on the floor of the hallway.
At about the 2-minute mark, Rose can be seen talking into what appears to be a radio while he stands near Mansilla.
At the 2-minute, 8-second mark, two people enter the scene. One appears to be a plainclothes officer and the other a Rutland County Sheriff’s Department deputy. The video shows the deputy, drawing his gun on Mansilla, who is on the floor barely moving.
Another officer, later identified as Deputy Avery Schneider, enters the scene seconds later, also drawing a gun on Mansilla.
At about the 3-minute mark — roughly a minute and 15 seconds after the shooting took place — the video shows Rose approaching Mansilla on the ground. Rose can be seen in the video pulling Mansilla’s arms behind him and placing him in handcuffs.
Mansilla’s body is partially obscured by other officers at the scene. It’s not clear if Rose ever checked Mansilla for a pulse.
Rose is led away from the scene by another officer about three and a half minutes into the video. As Mansilla remains lying on the ground in a pool of blood, it appears that Mansilla’s leg briefly twitches and that one of the officers puts a foot on Mansilla’s leg before another enters the scene and rolls Mansilla over onto his back.
At the 3-minute, 57-second mark — more than two minutes after the shooting — it appears that Schneider lifts up Mansilla’s shirt, possibly to render aid. However, it’s unclear exactly what’s happening because Vermont State Police pixelated the portion of the video showing Mansilla’s upper body.
No officers can be seen with any first-aid equipment at the scene before it cuts out at 4 minutes and 33 seconds, which was time-stamped as 2:38 p.m. on Aug. 25.
A separate video from the restaurant entrance — on the opposite side of the building from where the shooting took place — captured a fuller shot of the McDonald’s dining area. That video shows an ambulance crew with a stretcher entering the restaurant at about 2:43 p.m., and at about four minutes later at 2:47 p.m., the ambulance crew is shown leaving the restaurant with an empty stretcher.
According to his death certificate, Mansilla was pronounced dead a minute earlier, at 2:46 p.m.
Mansilla’s occupation was listed as “disabled” on his death certificate. David Heria, Mansilla’s nephew, told Seven Days in September that his uncle had anxiety, adding, “I think he was just panicking.”
Heria, Mansilla’s nephew who lives in Miami, Florida, said Thursday that he had many questions about the shooting, particularly why lethal force was used and why Rose didn’t wait for backup before going inside the bathroom.
Heria said he was particularly concerned that Rutland City police don’t employ body cameras to provide increased accountability.
“Body cameras should be necessary,” he said, and the department should make them a budget priority and even run a fundraiser to pay for them if they can’t afford them.
In this case, Heria said, it’s hard to judge exactly what took place without a police body camera that was recording Rose’s actions.
Heria did say that, since his uncle reportedly charged Rose in the bathroom, it would have been pretty clear he didn’t have a gun.
“If I have a gun, I’m not going to run toward you,” he said.
Mansilla had an outstanding probation from Connecticut at the time of the shooting, according to the statement issued by the Attorney General’s Office along with its finding.
In response to a request to question Attorney General TJ Donovan about the video, Charity Clark, the chief of staff for the attorney general, replied in an email, “Regarding your question, the Attorney General’s Office reviewed all the investigatory materials and came to the conclusion outlined in the press release.”
VTDigger had also requested similar records and videos from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office. Vermont State Police provided the redacted videos to VTDigger on Tuesday. The Attorney General’s Office provided the same redacted videos to the news organization late Tuesday night.
The attorney general’s office, in that email to VTDigger, also provided a cost estimate to VTDigger of $807 for the time and work needed to review and make redactions to additional records requested related to the investigation.
Jackie O’Brien contributed to this story.
