Chinedu Okobi

Chinedu Okobi, 36, a Morehouse College graduate and father, died on October 3, 2018 after San Mateo County, California sheriff's deputies Tased him repeatedly, struck him with a baton, and pepper-sprayed him during a confrontation that began when a deputy approached him for jaywalking on El Camino Real in Millbrae. Okobi crossed the street to get away from the deputy; when more deputies arrived, a violent struggle followed in which he was shocked with a Taser seven times. He went into cardiac arrest and died; an autopsy attributed his death to cardiac arrest linked to an undiagnosed enlarged heart, physical exertion, restraint, and the repeated Taser shocks. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe announced in March 2019 that none of the five deputies and sergeant involved would face criminal charges. Okobi was the third person with mental illness to die after being Tased by law enforcement in San Mateo County within that same year. No one has ever been charged in Okobi's death.

Millbrae, CA · San Mateo County

• 2018: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The jaywalking stop, the struggle, and the repeated Taser deployments, per video released by the San Mateo County District Attorney's office and Wagstaffe's own public findings.
• Deputy Joshua Wang initially approached Okobi for jaywalking; when Okobi crossed the street away from him, additional deputies were called and a struggle followed involving batons, pepper spray, and multiple Taser deployments — seven by most reporting, though the exact count varies slightly across sources.
• An autopsy found Okobi died of cardiac arrest, with an undiagnosed enlarged heart identified as a contributing risk factor for sudden death following Taser shocks, a risk a UCSF cardiac researcher testified applies broadly to repeated Taser use.
• District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe announced on March 1, 2019 that none of the four deputies or the sergeant present would face criminal charges, calling the death a "horrible tragedy" while declining to fault Okobi.
• None of the deputies present turned Okobi onto his side, as department policy required after restraint, and none administered CPR before paramedics arrived, according to a local news account of the incident.
• San Mateo County's own internal affairs investigation later cleared the deputies of policy violations as well.
• In 2023, San Mateo County agreed to pay Okobi's family $4.5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.

• Whether the level of force used — seven Taser deployments combined with baton strikes and pepper spray against a man who deputies acknowledged never displayed a weapon — was proportionate to the threat he posed was disputed by the family's attorney, who called it "over-aggressiveness," and was never tested at any criminal trial.
• Why none of the deputies present repositioned Okobi onto his side or began CPR before paramedics arrived, despite department policy, was not directly addressed in the district attorney's public charging decision.
• The precise sequence connecting the initial jaywalking stop to the level of force ultimately used has been described somewhat differently across the district attorney's account and the family's characterization of the video.

• KQED — “San Mateo County Sheriff's Officers Won't Face Charges for Fatal Arrest of Unarmed Man”
• San Francisco Chronicle — “Chinedu Okobi case: San Mateo sheriff's deputies cleared in Taser death of unarmed black man”
• Marin Independent Journal, via Press Reader — “County agrees to pay $4.5M in deadly Taser deployment”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs