Alameda DA to personally review restraint death of Bay Area rapper Zumbi

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley is personally reviewing the homicide of Bay Area rapper Stephen “Zumbi” Gaines, who went unconscious and died after being restrained by hospital staff and handcuffed by police, her office announced Wednesday.

The announcement by a spokeswoman for O’Malley comes just one day after O’Malley met with Gaines’ family, and may indicate a reversal of a different prosecutor’s decision that Gaines’ death was not criminal in nature. The office spokeswoman would only say that “new information” has come out, prompting O’Malley to review Gaines’ killing.

“We are looking at potential new information,” DA office spokeswoman Angela Ruggiero said. “That’s all I can say at this time.”

Ruggiero gave no timetable for O’Malley’s decision. She is scheduled to leave officer after 2022, and two attorneys — civil rights lawyer Pamela Price and Alameda County assistant district attorney Terry Wiley — are engaged in a November runoff election to replace her.

On Friday, it was reported that Gaines’ death was ruled a homicide back in May, but that Berkeley police and at least one Alameda County prosecutor reviewed the evidence in a meeting and determined it was not criminal in nature.

The coroner’s report says that Gaines was tackled and held onto the floor by at least three hospital staff — two of whom placed all their body weight onto him at one point — less than a day after checking himself into Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley.

The staff held him down for five to 10 minutes before police arrived and handcuffed him, the report says. At some point, police officers claimed they realized he wasn’t breathing and bleeding from him mouth and began a failed attempt to resuscitate him. The coroner’s report cited the physical restraint during a “psychotic episode” and complications from COVID-19 as contributing factors in ruling Gaines’ death a homicide.

The incident was at least partially captured on video, though authorities have thus far refused to release both the hospital’s security camera footage or body camera footage from the officers who handcuffed Gaines. Similarly, the names of security guards and hospital staff who restrained him, as well as the involved officers, have not been publicly revealed.

Gaines, 48, was a father of three and Bay Area rapper whose career spanned more than 20 years. He was best known as the MC of the hip-hop group Zion I but also released solo projects. The group announced a reunion tour just days before Gaines’ death on Aug. 13, 2021.

Last February, Stephen Gaines’ mother, Carolyn Gaines, released a public statement saying she would continue to push for prosecution of “Alta Bates, Allied Universal and their employees for killing my beautiful son.”

“I am dedicated to seeking justice for his killing,” she said.