In video of the April 18 encounter, Frank Tyson can be seen lying motionless on the floor of a bar for more than 5 minutes before police check him for a pulse.

The Canton Police Department in Ohio has released body camera video from the night a 53-year-old man died after he repeatedly told officers “I can’t breathe” as he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and he was pinned to the ground.

In video of the encounter on April 18, the man, Frank Tyson, can be seen lying motionless on the floor of a bar for more than 5 minutes before police check him for a pulse and about 8 minutes before CPR is started.

In the nearly 36-minute video, police respond to the scene of a single-car crash to find a downed power pole and an unoccupied vehicle with the driver’s side door open and an airbag deployed.

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Yeah. The details are in the article. Officer had his knee on the victims upper back for at least 30 seconds while the victim begged the officer to move as he couldn’t breathe. At some point he stopped responding entirely while the officers were holding him. He needed immediate medial attention from the instant he stopped breathing. Instead of helping him officers told him “shut the fuck up you’re fine”. And only after he had stopped moving for 5 minutes did they check and realize he was dead.

      The knee on the upper back position is illegal. The correct thing to do is to have 1 officer hold his shoulders steady and the other hand cuff him. If there’s only 1 officer present (which there never should be), there are many other holds that are not life threatening. I think it’s entirely fair and legitimate to say that they killed him. It’s not libelous, or exaggeration, they killed him and did not seek medical attention when he very clearly stated he wasn’t able to breathe. That’s manslaughter and negligent homicide at least.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Its too much to ask for what should be an anti-police story related to them murdering a civilian to not use passive voice to describe the murder.

      • Custodian1623@lemmy.world
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        Yes because it’s not an anti-police story, it’s a reporting of events with which you can use your brain to reach a conclusion. What you’re describing is better suited for commentary like this thread.

          • Custodian1623@lemmy.world
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            If you look at the URL the original published headline said ‘alleged murder’, it’s always more passive until something sticks, like a murder charge.

            Edit: NBC is not doing their jobs correctly if they make assumptions about the cause of death. We’ve seen excessive force in similar situations being the direct cause of death but it’s not the job of these news outlets to make assumptions on your behalf. An assumption about something that was likely to have happened is still an assumption.

            If NBC calls it a murder and a report comes out that definitively shows that the death happened concurrently but was not caused by the use of force then NBC is in the shit because they appealed to your emotions instead of reporting the facts.

    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Maybe they just don’t like lawsuits? There is a reason the word allegedly is used so often.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      Yeah it’s there some unwritten rule against the press saying they killed him? Only good reason i can think of is they’re still waiting for the autopsy to confirm cause of death.

          • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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            Perhaps because a court hasn’t ruled on it, they won’t word it that explicitly?

            My best guess is that the new paper could be charged with defamation if the court ruled that the police didn’t kill him and they claimed he did.

            But I’m not a lawyer and have no idea about the law regarding journalism nor its ethics.

      • 100_kg_90_de_belin @feddit.it
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        8 months ago

        Because even though there’s a video showing that a cop killed a man, everybody (even cops) is innocent until proven guilty. Otherwise, you could get into a trial for slander and for having caused distress.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I don’t understand why officers always ignore people when they ask for medical help. If someone says they can’t breath, that’s a clue that you should do something different, not leave them on the floor handcuffed.

    How is it that police are still trained to respond to situations this way? The negligence is obvious. This isn’t the same as what happened with George Floyd, but nonetheless very negligent.

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      It’s because they don’t see them as people, they see them as violent criminals that the world would be better off without.

      If you step into their shoes for a minute, and one of the criminals you just successfully took off of the streets said they can’t breathe, your first thought might be “good. Maybe that’ll teach you a lesson about doing crimes in my neighborhood.” Your second might be “I wish I could shoot you right now and get this over with, but maybe I’ll get lucky and I can say I didn’t hear you.”

      Note that the second one is inherently a stupid thought, there’s body cams. That kind of logic didn’t stop my 5-year-old from telling me she cleaned her room when I could easily check and find out she didn’t, and it won’t stop cops from fantasizing about everything working out here.

      That’s exactly why they do things that way. They’re living out a fantasy world where there are no real rules and there are no consequences, and they have to live a balancing act between indulging in that and dealing with reality. Sometimes cops fail to balance that, and that’s what we see here.

      As for who trains them, it’s their fellow cops. This isn’t a bunch of individual fantasies, these men work and train and talk together about how it’d be so much better if they had less restrictions and just talk about that hypothetical world. New cops who have any kind of racism or similar “My group is best” can join the conversation and add in their own unique version to the group fantasy. New cops who aren’t already racist, though, won’t hear blatant racism. No, they will just hear about crime stats and reoffending rates, about cops that died trying to deal with all the supposed crime, and about how stopping them is justice and will help everyone, not just cops. In time they’ll share the group fantasy, too, and stop seeing their victims as people. Occasionally someone just doesn’t join in the fantasy and they get bullied until they quit.

      This is why the easiest way to move forward from this kind of thing is to gut the police departments and start over, or we at least need bodycams that can’t be turned off so easily.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        Maybe, but it didn’t used to be this way even as recently as the 80s. And it isn’t like this in most other countries (at least the European ones km aware of).

        It’s a cultural thing, and training, and it can be fixed, we just have to want to fix it bad enough. No idea what will be the tipping point. George Floyd wasn’t enough, so I’m not sure what if anything will be. Or if we’ll just go deeper I to this police state mentality where everything is an us vs them situation.

        • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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          What talking about cops Always been this way. Especially in the 80’s and 90’s when we didn’t have recordings devices. Remember Rodney King?

        • ickplant@lemmy.world
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          Are you too young to remember the Rodney King protests? They literally had to call in the Marines and the Army to quell them. That was in 1991, and a result of police brutality against an unarmed Black man.

          Edit: Wanted to add that police in general came from slave patrols. It was a racist institution designed to instill terror into people of color from the very beginning. It was never about “serving and protecting.”

          • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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            I was a kid back then, but even i had no idea of the background leading to the riots. Like how the group that beat King were part of a gang that was on a mission to beat black men, or the unrelated (except by racism) widely publicized trial verdicts where multiple white citizens were found not guilty or given light sentences for killing black kids (I’ve forgotten a lot of the details of the documentary, but ill never forget the shocked faces of the parents of a kid shot by a convenience store clerk after her community service verdict). The righteous anger had been boiling over all year, and King was just the final straw.

            And nothing has changed for the better in all this time

          • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yes, I was a baby in 1991. I don’t have data, but I’ve heard anecdotes from former police officers that police training has changed significantly since the 80s.

            It’s definitely become much more militarized.

            • ickplant@lemmy.world
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              I don’t disagree with that, but it would be false to say that police brutality directed at people of color is a new thing. That’s always been there.

              • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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                I never said police violence directed at people of color was a new thing.

                My point, which I think wasn’t very clear bcz I worded it poorly is that police are trained to draw their guns immediately today and shoot to kill. That didn’t used to be the case.

            • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              The militarization accelerated due to events where the police took an ass whoopin like the North Hollywood bank robbery.

        • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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          Warrior training has taken like wildfire, they’re trained to do anything to survive and put into the mindset that if they don’t kill they will be killed.

        • Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world
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          There just wasn’t high definition evidence from the time youre thinking of. Give this 20 years and I bet any video recordings of average police behavior will be “deepfakes”.

          Nothing to see here citizen. Now pick up this can…

        • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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          It’s always happened. There just used to not be cameras all around all the time.

          Rodney King was the 90s George Floyd.

        • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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          Training for police has changed. I don’t have the data but i read that many police are often trained by ex-military who are more skilled at (and therefore focus on) training soldiers to be an occupying force rather than as citizens policing each other

    • shadowSprite@lemmy.world
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      I used to be an EMT (am going to be working as one again soon) and where I worked we had some good cops and some real shitty cops who had no business being cops, but one thing that they all had in common was that the rules were if someone asked for medical help, they had to call the ambulance. Didn’t matter if it looked like obvious bullshit, all the departments in the area I worked had a blanket policy that they weren’t medical professionals and they couldn’t make that decision. You could have a tiny little cut on your finger and ask for medical help and even the shittiest cops would sigh and call for EMS. These cops infuriate me. How many more people have to get murdered? If someone asks for help fucking help them and sort out the details later.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      I don’t think it’s negligence.

      This reminds me of how California recently brought back police officers for “school security”.

      Did they remove the officers? No, the officers left in a hissy fit because the govt had the temerity to outlaw the use of this killer position on the kids (I believe enacted in the wake of George Floyd).

      Why leave for something like that? It makes sense. These are kids, right? It’s a position that kills, right? That’s what this article is showing us, again.

      You might assume the police relented because they like the govt money, right? I did too, but it was the govt who backed of, removing the law restricting the killer positions use.

      To me, the police depts collective action in California show that it is not negligence. In this case, it just doesn’t make… sense. The position is dangerous. The job is ostensibly protecting children, in a state sponsored school! It makes no sense that cops would care about one position so much…

      Seriously, I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, it must be they care more about the precedent being set (and thus the possible loss of this power) than the safety of kids. And that’s the best motive i can think of.

      I don’t want people like that anywhere near kids or with the power to influence govt so much. This latest murder shows they care nothing for the people they “protect and serve” only for the power they’re allowed to wield.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Did you even read the article? This was a case of very clear negligent.

        they care nothing for the people they “protect and serve” only for the power they’re allowed to wield

        Yes, there’s literally a Supreme Court case stating that police have no obligation to protect and serve. Why are you ranting at me about something very off topic?

        I understand people are just overall frustrated, but this entire comment you made has nothing to do with the article, or this particular police interaction.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        I don’t believe that for a second. People get into policing for all kinds of reasons. But the common denominator is that the barrier to entry is very low these days, and they expect to be hiring people with intelligence below a certain level. It has been explicitly stated as such by a number of police departments around the country.

        When your entire workforce is filled with grunts just following orders they don’t generally have the best critical thinking skills.

        Are there some people who get into it for the reason you mentioned, probably. But, if you think everybody joining the police is doing it for that reason, you’re sorely mistaken.

        • drphungky@lemmy.world
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          Totally agree police departments need better candidates but that intelligence thing is not true at all. The one case that started that rumor was just a police department doing age discrimination against a candidate, and covering their asses in the lawsuit by using intelligence because it’s not a protected class. It was never about intelligence - it was age discrimination.

          What police departments need is better training, a smaller mandate (i.e., mental health professionals need to be called to those types of events), and a big enough cultural change that normal people at least consider doing the job, like firefighters.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      I don’t understand why officers always ignore people when they ask for medical help.

      Not to appear to be defending the cops, but I would expect a lot of people who are being arrested for legitimate reasons (and again, I’m not talking about this specific case) are motivated to lie to the police in an attempt to get out of the situation.

      • drphungky@lemmy.world
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        Also they clearly didn’t take this guy seriously since he was yelling, “They want to kill me!” before they even touched him. They probably thought he was crying wolf. Better training would mean they wouldn’t have used an illegal hold and killed him, they’d probably have taken him seriously if they knew the dangers at that particular moment in time…plus with better training over a long enough period of time people wouldn’t be as scared of the cops in the first place so there wouldn’t be any miscommunication. It’s still clearly the fault of modern policing but you can understand why it happened at least. Super tragic.

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wh2spkbaARA

      Just … jump to some random parts of that video. Or this…

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3WPNj3IuOOE

      Or even this…

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=863aE25HQ5M

      It’s because plenty of people in the general public lie, take advantage, abuse any angle they can.

      I don’t agree with officers delaying CPR and pulse checks, they absolutely should be looking for genuine signs of distress or injury… But, I get why their faith in humanity is trashed to the point they don’t actually expect to find anything.

      • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Police are cowards and bullies. They treat everyone as a suspect rather than a human.

        • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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          They really don’t. My cousin married a cop, my brother is a volunteer fire fighter that regularly has to interact with them, a good friend of mine is an ex-cop turned IT guy, the guy who lives across the street from me is a cop, I’ve also had interactions with random officers at coffee shops here in Akron and at a few events.

          My hot take is most of them would rather live and let live unless you’re doing something monumentally stupid or they get a call.

          And yeah, I’ve also met some douchebags on power trips, but “ACAB” is a failed and ridiculously confrontational movement. You’re never going to get anywhere near the reforms we need to see in policing with the ACAB or “fuck the police” mentality.

          • juicy@lemmy.today
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            Sure, they’re nice until they’re on the job, having a bad day, decide you’re a “bad guy” due to whatever biases or circumstances they find you in, get angry or frightened and snap and kill you as we’ve seen over and over and over again.

          • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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            We’ve had very different experiences with police officers. It’s my personal interactions with police over the years that’s given me a very low opinion of them. Then I saw someone get fired from a job a few years ago, and he decided instead to go into policing (he’s a former marine), which is when I realized police aren’t some magical cabal of highly trained individuals. Most people go into policing in the U.S. these days bcz they can’t do anything else.

            That’s a sorry state of policing in my opinion, and much of our issues with police culture stem from that.

            Unfortunately, there’s scientifci data and statistics to back up what I’m saying, and there’s very little data to back up your viewpoint.

            • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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              I hate lynch mobs. ACAB and “fuck the police” are lynch mobs based on broad generalizations.

              There is scientific data and statistics to show that black people and others are disproportionately targeted by the police. It’s immediately obvious the police unions protects their own including some folks they likely shouldn’t.

              These are problems we should strive to understand and fix.

              There is not scientific data showing that all cops (or even more than a minority of cops) are bullies out to treat everyone as a suspect or fetishize their next opportunity to beat the crap out of someone. That is an opinion and one that immediately shuts down any hope of a reasonable discussion about how two parties might move forward. Show me one scientific study where someone went “you’re a bastard and you can go fuck yourself” and then got a constructive response… It doesn’t exist, because people do not like being put into groups and told what their own individual opinions must be.

              • juicy@lemmy.today
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                ACAB is an earned generalization from day-to-day experience, actual statistics, and media coverage. We’re long past “make nice.” Police need to go. So fuck their feelings.

              • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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                Why do you keep bringing up lynch mobs? We’re talking about police reform here, it’s necessary. The policing system is rotten to the core. It’s not a few bad apples, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation even.

                • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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                  Look at your behavior. There’s nothing constructive here. There’s no constructive talk about reforms. There’s no proposal for what to do better. There’s no new take or new information. There’s literally nothing of value.

                  It’s just “police bad” and I’m not here for it. I’m talking about lynch mobs because the ACAB crowd is not contributing anything more than a lynch mob would.

          • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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            Fuck the police unions? ACUAB? It’s the protection of the unions that allow cops to behave badly and kill people. The unions support the untouchable status of cops for almost every criminal act they commit while on duty. They hide behind the badge while allowing so many bad actors to tarnish it daily.

            • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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              I can get behind attacking the police unions and demanding they be reformed (particularly the ones that have a history of protecting abuse of power and excessive force serial offenders). That is more constructive but less catchy (as constructive points usually are).

    • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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      I’d guess there are a lot of people who make excuses when getting arrested, and saying you are having a medical emergency is an easy one. If you’re a cop who sees this a lot, you would eventually start assuming everything people say was just an attempt to get pity or leniency.

      The other possibility is that all cops are bastards… But I’m guessing its a mix of the two.

  • fiend_unpleasant ☑️ @lemmy.world
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    This shit again!?! gumbles while digging out body armor mutters under breath, these fucking idiots need to lose their god damned jobs… they won’t even get jail time OK I’m ready… ACAB and all that puts on gas mask lets do this shit again

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    I live near Canton. I cannot express the rage, disappointment, and sorrow I feel at this. I fucking hate having the conversations. It is so soul crushing to hsct to explain to loved ones who get brainwashed that “killing bad”.

  • Hossenfeffer
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    Haven’t read the story yet but… was this a white guy? I’m going to guess not,

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    I’m not defending the police here, but could this man have had a heart attack due to the presence of drugs or alcohol in his system, combined with the fact that his heart rate was elevated by resisting arrest? He does not appear to be in good physical condition. I see that his stomach looks a little distended and he sort of waddles as he took steps around the bar area. I’m not condoning the knee on the back, or the amount of elapsed time before checking for a pulse, but I think they should conduct a toxicology test and publish the report soon. Also, the article claims he crashed his car before running into the bar. He might have sustained injuries from the crash, and then exerted himself by running from the scene. There is a lot that occurred in this incident before the police arrived at the bar.

    • Kedly@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      “I’m not defending police here” procedes to defend police

    • teejay@lemmy.world
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      I’m not defending the police here, but

      Oh boy, here we go.

      could this man have had a heart attack due to the presence of drugs or alcohol in his system, combined with the fact that his heart rate was elevated by resisting arrest

      Totally. He could have also died from a brain aneurysm, aliens, a very advanced case of SIDS, or a witch’s curse. Or, you know, maybe he died from the whole not being able to breathe thing that was actually happening.

      He does not appear to be in good physical condition. I see that his stomach looks a little distended and he sort of waddles as he took steps around the bar area.

      He didn’t look like he was in great shape? Only fitness buffs and marathon runners with no booze in their systems get to live though being cuffed? Tf is wrong with you.

      • fustigation769curtain@lemmy.world
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        Why are you getting so upset? He’s taking a very rational approach and asking relevant questions.

        You should really work on your insecurity.

        • fosho@lemmy.ca
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          there is nothing relevant or acceptable about suggesting that an unhealthy person could reasonably die by being arrested. The methods of arrest are objectively fucking incorrect if they result in death for anyone generally being non violent.

    • pufferfischerpulver@feddit.de
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      Even if the knee on the back is not the cause what the fuck is wrong with the officers to just brush off his plea for help? Say he has an asthma attack and couldn’t breath, after he’s handcuffed on the floor there’s not much he can do himself. If you immobilised someone you need to take care of them. If they die in your care while calling for help at the least it’s negligence.