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Ebele Okobi's son was only three days into life when a hospital nurse started making predictions. The nurse said that he was so fat that he was going to become a football player.
At that time, Ms. Okobi, 44, said that she knew she had to leave America, a country where being tall and black often meant being more at risk of dating. fatal with the forces of order. "They already talk about him as he was tall and intimidating," she recalls. "I can not raise a black son in America. I do not have that kind of courage. "
Okobi went to London four years ago with her husband and three children, finding solace that seemed unbearable at home. But two weeks ago, she received a call from her mother. Ms. Okobi's youngest brother, Chinedu Valentine Okobi, 36, had problems with police officers in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was hit with a stun gun and died.
"There was something in this call that seemed inevitable, because it was something I was running away from," Ms. Okobi said.
While Ms. Okobi and her family are preparing to bury and commemorate her brother on Tuesday, the case is attracting attention not only because it's still a black man dying at the hands of the police, but also for its proximity to the Silicon Bubble Technology Valley.
Ms. Okobi, whose parents are from Nigeria, is Facebook's director of public policy for Africa. Following the murder of his brother, every senior company official, including Mark Zuckerberg, turned to her for support, she said. Current and former Facebook colleagues used their connections to share his brother's story among activists and the media.
Several Facebook executives are expected to attend Mr. Okobi's commemorative ceremony. A commemorative fund intended to donate to the Equal Justice Initiative in his honor was created on Facebook.
Much of what happened at the time of Mr. Okobi's death remains unclear. The meeting with the police on October 3 began when a sheriff's deputy from San Mateo County saw Mr. Okobi enter and exit traffic on a busy street in Millbrae, California, said Stephen M. Wagstaffe, District Attorney San Mateo, whose office is studying the case. When the MP approached Okobi, he "immediately assaulted the MP," according to a press release issued by the sheriff's office.
At least five deputies were involved in a fight with Mr. Okobi, who had been hit with the aid of a stun gun and had died in the hospital, authorities said. At least two MPs have fired their Tasers four times, said Wagstaffe.
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It's not easy to determine the role the Tasers played in Okobi's death, Wagstaffe said. There is also a different standard for an officer pulling the trigger of a firearm – for fear of life or for serious injury – compared to a taser.
"California law does not define the Taser as a deadly force," said Wagstaffe. "Reality is supposed to be the opposite. It's supposed to be a non-lethal force. "
Nevertheless, an officer must have good reason to deploy a Taser, he said. "It must be because he's trying to take control of someone who physically resists them," said Wagstaffe, rather than someone who simply speaks.
Mr. Wagstaffe said that in nearly forty years as San Mateo's prosecutor, the office had investigated about four fatal cases of Tasers use by the police, but had never been used before. complaint.
John Burris, a lawyer for Okobi's family, asked why the police had used force against Mr. Okobi when he did not appear to have committed a significant crime. Mr. Burris said that he was still trying to gather the details of what had happened, but a video that he said he received from a witness captured the most late meeting with the police.
"It looks like he's on the ground, he's being killed, he's screaming," What did I do? Burris said, "He finally walks away from that, running, looking like he's running for his life.
Mr. Okobi, who left behind a 12-year-old girl, was a family man, said his sister. When their parents divorced when he was young, some of his older siblings did not stay in close contact with their father, but Mr. Okobi made it a point to maintain a close relationship.
A graduate in business administration from Morehouse College, Okobi had great ambitions. This changed about a decade ago when he started fighting mental health issues, Okobi said. He was able to manage his condition, but his relatives feared that he had stopped taking his medication earlier this year.
Okobi said she hoped the death of her brother would help make the murder issue more relevant to the privileged by the police, including those in Silicon Valley who might feel alienated from these issues.
"Nothing beats the death of my brother," she said. "But to the extent that it can help people understand the problem and feel connected to it, we can at least try to find meaning."
Mike Isaac contributed to the reports.
Follow John Eligon on Twitter: @jeligon.
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