Suspect Identified, Charged With Manslaughter In Strange Sonoma Plaza Incident

Four men were initially arrested and one 28-year-old man has been charged in connection with a fatal September 7 assault that occurred in Sonoma Plaza, but the 64-year-old victim was apparently hurling racial epithets and yelling "I want to die."

64-year-old John Francis Avila died Sunday from injuries he sustained on Labor Day, the night of September 7, near the Italian Fountain in Sonoma Plaza, known to many locals as just "The Square." Video from the incident has gone viral after being posted to Facebook, and a blurred-out clip can be seen in ABC 7's coverage below.

In the video [warning, it's graphic], Avila could be heard exchanging racial epithets with the four younger men, and saying, several times, "I want to die" and "I don't like living." After using the N-word himself, he is either punched or pushed backward and falls to the ground, knocked unconscious.

The Sonoma Police Department posted to Facebook on Tuesday requesting that the video be taken down, saying they "consider [it to be] evidence in a homicide investigation that occurred in Sonoma" and the poster's "expressed hearsay about this case is not based on facts collected by the Sheriff's Office Detectives" nor by Sonoma PD officers who were on the scene.

Investigators say that 28-year-old Anthony Kirk dealt the fatal punch that knocked Avila to the ground. As KTVU reports, Kirk has now been charged with felony battery and involuntary manslaughter.

Kirk, who is Black, was apparently reacting to Avila's use of the N-word as he was exchanging words with the group, and Avila appears to continue approaching in an effort to provoke Kirk. It's unclear what transpired in the moments before the video began, or how Avila approached the group, or vice versa.

As legal analyst Steven Clark tells ABC 7, the case is "a prosecutor's nightmare," given Avila's words and actions prior to the altercation. Clark suggests that a jury may find that Kirk took "reasonable steps" to defend himself given the circumstances. But KTVU legal analyst Michael Cardoza sees the other side, suggesting Kirk should have known the grave dangers of reacting violently, saying, "You knock someone down, they fall over, their head hits the sidewalk, subdural hematoma could follow, and the person could die."

The Chronicle initially reported Monday that two of the men arrested were charged, but charges have been dropped against all but Kirk.

Friends of Avila, who had reportedly returned to Sonoma in May after moving away for a time, say that he was behaving completely out of character in the video. As the Sonoma Valley Sun reports, they speculate that he may have been having a mental health crisis of some kind, or that he was very intoxicated.

Kirk was arraigned in Sonoma County court on Tuesday, and Judge Robert M. LaForge granted him supervised release pending trial. He is now scheduled for his first pre-trial hearing on October 6, per the Sonoma Valley Sun.