Cocaine, Hogtying by Police Led to Man’s Death, Coroner Says : Investigation: Pasadena barber died in custody after a car chase. Use of the restraint procedure is restricted because it interferes with breathing in obese people.

Pasadena barber Michael James Bryant, who was involved in a car chase and struggle with police last month, died of “cocaine intoxication and asphyxiation from restraint procedures,” a coroner’s spokesman said Wednesday.

Bryant had a potentially lethal level of cocaine in his blood when he died shortly after 1 a.m. March 9, but the coroner described the death as a homicide, said spokesman Scott Carrier. Contributing factors in Bryant’s death were obesity, a fatty liver and scarring of heart tissue, Carrier said.

Although Carrier would not give details about the report, the findings of asphyxiation apparently fit with allegations by Bryant’s family that the use of a controversial hogtying technique to restrain Bryant interfered with his breathing. The technique, in which a suspect’s wrists and ankles are handcuffed behind his back, has been restricted by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Arresting officers apparently violated the restrictions when they placed Bryant on his stomach in the rear of a police car. Pathologists have warned police departments that restraining corpulent people such as Bryant, who weighed 320 pounds, in that manner can cause them to stop breathing, especially when they are agitated or under the influence of drugs.

The coroner’s report came as the Pasadena City Council was calling for an investigation into Bryant’s death by the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights.

In a letter mailed Wednesday to Arthur A. Fletcher, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Mayor Rick Cole asked for immediate action on a request for an investigation.

“I do not need to remind you of the importance at this time of ensuring public trust in our justice system,” Cole wrote. “We are all working together to hold the peace in our region. At the same time we must all work together for justice.”

Police from three jurisdictions--Pasadena, San Marino and Los Angeles--had pursued Bryant to a Highland Park apartment complex, where police said he fell into a swimming pool. Police reports indicate that officers from Los Angeles and San Marino struck Bryant with batons, but Pasadena police have said their officers only helped carry Bryant to a police car.

Los Angeles police shot him with a Taser stun gun as he stood in the pool, hogtied him and placed him on his stomach in the back of a San Marino patrol car, according to LAPD accounts. Bryant died shortly afterward.

The death of Bryant, a respected figure in the city’s Northwest neighborhood, has aroused many Pasadenans. More than 100 of them went to Tuesday’s City Council meeting to demand an investigation.

A spokesman for a group called Friend of Michael Bryant said that preliminary results of an independent autopsy showed that Bryant had been beaten before he died.

Bryant’s body had 26 lacerations--including cuts and scrapes on the face and scalp--and a circular bruise on the chest, possibly from the butt of a police baton, said Gary Moody. “The bottom line is that he was beaten,” Moody said. “Who he was beaten by we need to know.”

The lacerations were described in a preliminary report of an autopsy conducted by a forensic pathologist hired by Bryant’s family, Moody said.

The county coroner could not be reached late Wednesday to confirm the independent pathologist’s findings.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesmen said Bryant had been struck with batons because he refused to submit to arrest. He said Bryant also fell headlong down a hillside and into a chain-link fence during the chase.

Moody would not provide the name of the pathologist who performed the independent autopsy. He referred a reporter to the office of attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., who is representing the Bryant family. Cochran did not respond to telephone messages.

Bryant’s family on Tuesday filed claims against the three cities whose police officers participated in the arrests, asking for damages of more than $20 million. In Wednesday’s editions, The Times erroneously reported the figure as $200 million.

The family contends that Bryant tried to submit to arrest but was taunted and beaten by officers and was “totally incapacitated” by the Taser dart when police hogtied him.

Cole also wrote to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, asking for LAPD and paramedic reports on Bryant’s death, as well as a copy of Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ policy regarding hogtying.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, more than 20 speakers expressed anger and frustration at the time it has taken to explain Bryant’s death.

“This was not an alcoholic or a drug addict,” Moody said. “Michael Bryant was an upstanding businessman. When it comes to a situation involving his death, we want to know why.”

Several speakers compared Bryant’s death to the beating of Altadena motorist Rodney G. King.

Witnesses at the scene of Bryant’s arrest in Highland Park have offered differing accounts.

Teresa Ramirez, who lives in an apartment on the hillside above the complex where Bryant was captured, questioned the need to hogtie Bryant. He was limp and possibly unconscious when officers removed him from the pool, she said.

“He was dead weight, like a sack of potatoes” Ramirez said.

But residents of the apartment complex said that Bryant continued to struggle after he was pulled from the pool. “The officers kept telling him not to move, not to move,” said one woman, who declined to give her name.