TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) 鈥 An Ohio man who was handcuffed and left facedown on the floor of a social club last week died in police custody, and the officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave.
Police body-camera footage released Wednesday shows a Canton police officer responding to a report of a crash and finding Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old East Canton resident, by the bar in a nearby American Veterans, or AMVETS, post.
The crash at about 8 p.m. on April 18 had severed a utility pole. Officer Beau Schoenegge's body-camera footage shows that after a passing motorist directed police to the bar, a woman opened the door and said: "Please get him out of here, now.鈥
Police grabbed Tyson, and he resisted being handcuffed and said repeatedly, 鈥淭hey鈥檙e trying to kill me鈥 and 鈥淐all the sheriff,鈥 as he was taken to the floor.
They restrained him 鈥 including with a knee on his back 鈥 and he immediately told officers he could not breathe. A found those words 鈥 鈥淚 can't breathe鈥 鈥 had been disregarded in other cases of deaths in police custody.
Officers told Tyson he was fine, to calm down and to stop fighting as he was facedown with his legs crossed on the carpeted floor. Police were joking with bystanders and leafing through Tyson's wallet before realizing he was in a medical crisis.
Five minutes after the body-camera footage recorded Tyson saying "I can鈥檛 breathe,鈥 one officer asked another if Tyson had calmed down. The other replied, 鈥淗e might be out.鈥
Tyson telling officers he was unable to breathe echoes the events preceding the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. Tyson was Black, according to the coroner鈥檚 office. Both Canton Police Department traffic bureau officers who were placed on leave, Schoenegge and Camden Burch, are white, according to the police department.
Tyson did not move when an officer told him to stand and tried to roll him over. They shook him and checked for a pulse.
Minutes later, an officer said medics needed to 鈥渟tep it up鈥 because Tyson was not responding and the officer was unsure if he could feel a pulse. Officers began CPR.
The Canton police report about Tyson鈥檚 death that was issued Friday said that 鈥渟hortly after securing him,鈥 officers 鈥渞ecognized that Tyson had become unresponsive鈥 and that CPR was performed. Doses of Narcan were also administered before medics arrived. Tyson was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour later.
Chief investigator Harry Campbell with the Stark County Coroner鈥檚 Office said Thursday an autopsy was conducted earlier in the week and Tyson鈥檚 remains were released to a funeral home.
His niece, Jasmine Tyson, called the video 鈥渘onsense鈥 in an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland. 鈥淚t just seemed like forever that they finally checked him,鈥 Jasmine Tyson said.
Frank Tyson was released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years on a kidnapping and theft case and was almost immediately declared a post-release control supervision violator for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
A Tyson family member reached by phone Thursday declined immediate comment.
The Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation said in a statement Thursday that its probe will not determine if force was justified and that the prosecuting attorney or a grand jury will decide if charges related to the use of force are warranted.
Canton Mayor William V. Sherer II said he expressed his condolences to Frank Tyson's family in person.
鈥淎s we make it through this challenging time, my goal is to be as transparent with the community as possible,鈥 Sherer said in a statement released Wednesday.
The U.S. Department of Justice has warned police officers since the mid-1990s to roll suspects off their stomachs as soon as they are handcuffed because of the danger of positional asphyxia.
Many policing experts agree that someone can stop breathing if pinned on their chest for too long or with too much weight because it can compress the lungs and put stress on the heart. But when done properly, putting someone on their stomach is not inherently life-threatening.
An investigation led by The Associated Press published in March found more than 1,000 people died over a decade after police subdued them through means not intended to be lethal, including prone restraint.
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Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
