Video released Friday by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office shows the 2019 arrest of an Atlantic County man and his last few minutes in the county jail before he was taken to a local hospital and died after he appeared “agitated and ill.”
That’s how the office described the condition of Mario Terruso, 41, of Mays Landing, in its statement, which featured body worn camera footage of the corrections officers getting him out of his cell and preparing him to be taken to the hospital.
Most of the videos show his arrest and transport to the jail. They can be seen in their entirety here.
One video shows officers arriving at a Hamilton Township home around 1 p.m. on September 15, 2019. A man wearing a robe comes out of the small house saying a man, later identified as Terruso, is inside his home who told him someone was “shooting at him.” The resident tells officers the man is hiding in a bedroom and that he has a knife.
The officers plead with Terruso to come out of the house and drop the knife. He asks the officers what his birthday is and when they were able to tell him with the help of a dispatcher, he leaves the home and allows himself to be handcuffed.
Once Terruso is placed in the back of a police car, the man can be heard telling officers there were “shooters after him” after they asked him why he was running and went inside the home. He tells them he was chased from another home to the Hamilton house where officers found him.
Terruso also later tells the officer who drives him to jail that he saw people inside an SUV but the officer told him he did not see anybody and asked him if he was on any drugs and Terruso responded that he was not.
After learning that Terruso had an open warrant for his arrest, authorities lodged him in the county jail, the office said.
While in his cell, Terruso appeared agitated and ill, according to a statement from the office, and shortly before 7 p.m., corrections officers attempted to get him ready to be taken to a local hospital for treatment.
This was captured on body worn and hand held cameras.
The video from body worn camera begins with Terruso dry heaving in his cell as the officers prepare to restrain him. He continues heaving as the officers put the handcuffs on him as two nurses begin to examine him, the video shows. He appears to be sweating profusely throughout the process.
In the video, as officers tell him to calm down, he can be seen falling to the floor, and it appears that officers continue restraining him. The action then becomes difficult to see in the video, but loud sounds can be heard. An officer can be heard saying, “stop f------ resisting,” before two more loud sounds are heard.
Blood can be seen on the floor underneath Terruso’s head as the officers move back. An officer asks for a “spit hood” after Terruso is fully restrained and the officers begin to wrap his feet. As the officers sit him up, and begin removing some of his restraints, he stops making any noise. In the video, his head just appears to sag, and one officer beings checking for a pulse.
As they lay him back down he continues to be unresponsive and the officer begins doing chest compressions and calls for medical help as the video ends.
Medical assistance was rendered by corrections officers and emergency medical personnel, who arrived at around 7 p.m., the office said. Terruso left the jail in an ambulance at approximately 7:25 p.m., and arrived at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Mainland Campus, at approximately 7:50 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m. on September 16, 2019.
Investigators gave the video recordings to Terruso’s representative and relatives for their review and the office said it has engaged with his family and the representative “over many months” to provide them an opportunity to review them before they were released publicly on Friday.
Alan Wright, who has known Terruso for about 15 years, who said he was working as a jail runner delivering food trays, said he saw the incident unfold and described it in a Facebook post.
Wright said Terruso was “heaving” and begging for water when he saw him Sunday evening in the jail’s admissions area. Wright said that nurses laughed at Terruso and claimed he was faking a sickness so he could go to the hospital.
Minutes later Wright said he saw Terruso in an ambulance after five guards were ordered to wrap his hands and feet. Wright also said that jail guards were later “walking around bragging about how they were punching him in the face,” though he never saw anyone strike Terruso.
Wright’s claims don’t appear in the released video footage.
Terruso’s death remains under investigation by the Attorney General’s office which conducts all investigations of a person’s death that occurs during an encounter with a law enforcement officer acting in the officer’s official capacity or while the decedent is in custody.
When the entire investigation is complete, the case will be presented to a grand jury, typically consisting of 16 to 23 citizens, to make the ultimate decision regarding whether criminal charges will be filed, the office said. At present, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, regular grand juries are not sitting and hearing cases.
A 1996 graduate of Oakcrest High School, Terruso worked as a union painter, according to an online obituary. He is survived by his parents, a brother, a sister, four children, three grandparents as well as several nieces and nephews.
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Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com.
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