AUTHOR Libertarian Girl

May 14, 2013 2:15pm PST

A Bakersfield father of four died this week after struggling with nearly nine police officers outside of a medical facility. Witnesses say that the thirty-three year old pled for his life.

david1

Reports say he died early Wednesday morning after being struck by nine officers an unreported number of times. He was believed to be intoxicated.

Some witnesses evidently filmed the incident on their cellphones. However, deputies were quick to confiscate the phones.Individuals who claim they saw the event in addition to Silva’s relatives recounted a scene where officers were beating a powerless man to death.  Witnesses were outraged at video evidence being confiscated by deputies.

david2

According to Reason Magazine:

John Tello, a criminal law attorney, is representing two witnesses who took video footage and five other witnesses to the incident. He said his clients are still shaken by what they saw.

“When I arrived to the home of one of the witnesses that had video footage, she was with her family sitting down on the couch, surrounded by three deputies,” Tello said.

Tello said the witness was not allowed to go anywhere with her phone and was being quarantined inside her home.

david3

When Tello tried to talk to the witness in private and with the phone, one of the deputies stopped him and told him he couldn’t take the phone anywhere because it was evidence to the investigation, the attorney said…..

A search warrant wasn’t presented to either of the witnesses until after Tello arrived, he said, adding that one phone was seized before the warrant was produced.

david4

Tello said the phone of the first witness was taken after the deputies told him he was either going to give up the phone the easy way or the hard way.