The arrest of a deaf Black man with cerebral palsy, who was repeatedly punched and Tased by a pair of Phoenix police officers in August and later charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest, has come under new scrutiny.
Tyron McAlpin was arrested by officers Benjamin Harris and Kyle Sue on Aug. 19. But his arrest has only recently drawn national attention after one of his attorneys, Jesse Showalter, released police body camera video and surveillance footage from his arrest.
Some have seized on the officers’ actions as further proof that the Phoenix Police Department, which the Justice Department has said discriminates against minorities and uses excessive force, needs federal oversight. There is no indication that the officers knew McAlpin was deaf or had cerebral palsy before his arrest.
Amid mounting public outcry, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement Monday that the case “merits additional scrutiny.” Phoenix is the seat of Maricopa County.
Mitchell said that she has “great faith in the attorneys” who work at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and those who have reviewed the case so far, but plans to look at the case herself.
“Because of the attention on this case, I will personally review the entire file, as well as the totality of the video,” she said. “I may reach a different conclusion or I may not, but I believe this case merits additional scrutiny.”
According to a police incident report provided to NBC News by McAlpin’s attorney, shortly before 8 a.m. on Aug. 19 Harris responded to an emergency call of a fight at a Circle K convenience store on E. Indian School Road.
The 911 caller said a white man in his 20s had been the aggressor and was still in the store, according to the police incident report. Harris spoke with the man, who he said had dried blood on his T-shirt and looked disheveled, according to Harris’ account of the interaction included in the incident report.
The man told Harris he had been assaulted after he tried to stop the theft of a bike, according to the incident report. As he talked with the officer, he pointed to McAlpin, 34, who was walking nearby, as the person who had assaulted him, according to the incident report.
Harris and Sue pursued McAlpin in separate vehicles and intercepted him in the parking lot of another store.
Harris’ body camera video shows him attempting to arrest McAlpin within seconds of exiting his vehicle. The officer said in his report that he did so after McAlpin didn’t respond to a verbal command to “stop where you’re at.” McAlpin’s attorney said he is deaf and so he could not comply with the officers’ commands.
Harris said that after he exited his vehicle and tried to take hold of McAlpin’s left arm, McAlpin “immediately engaged in active aggression by swinging punches” at Harris’ head beginning with his left arm.
Within 15 seconds, one of the officers says “Tase him” and orders McAlpin to put his hands behind his back, the body camera video shows. Sue repeatedly punches McAlpin on the head. While McAlpin is face down and Sue holds his left hand behind his back, Harris Tases McAlpin and yells for him to put his hands behind his back. Sue again punches McAlpin in his back. McAlpin screams out and moves his right hand behind his back. Harris tells Sue, “I think I broke my hand” and Harris says McAlpin had bitten him, the body camera video shows. Much of the interaction is captured on Harris’ body camera. Sue’s body camera fell off at the beginning of the arrest and only shows the ground. McAlpin’s attorney has denied that his client bit Sue, saying he believes both officers’ injuries resulted from their “frenzied and violent attack on Tyron.”
After McAlpin is handcuffed, he can be heard making a series of noises.
McAlpin’s wife arrives on the scene minutes later and tells the officers that he is deaf and has cerebral palsy, the body camera video shows. She asks police to let McAlpin know that she is at the scene and Harris responds: “No. He doesn’t need to know.” McAlpin can be seen in the video laying on his side on the ground in the parking lot with Sue, Harris and another officer. The woman asks for the officers’ badge numbers and names and tells them they were wrong for shocking him with a Taser. His wife at one point tries to get closer and Harris tells her she needs to step back or otherwise she’ll be arrested, the video shows.
McAlpin was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and one count of resisting arrest, both felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of theft because the white man had accused him of stealing his cellphone, according to a complaint obtained by NBC News. The theft charge was dismissed in September.
In an interview on Monday, Showalter said that he had obtained the videos and police report from McAlpin’s parents. NBC News has submitted public records requests for these and other files but has not yet received them. Showalter said he has also requested pertinent videos, including body camera video from police interviews with workers at the Circle K who refuted the white man’s assault claim on Aug. 19, and other files of McAlpin’s arrest in full from police. He has not yet received a response, the attorney said. He said that if he does not receive that information by November, he intends to sue under public records laws.
Showalter said his priority remains getting what he described as unjust charges dropped.
“Anytime a person is facing felony charges, which necessarily involve a loss of their civil rights, potentially involve prison time, that always has to be the first priority,” he said. “My personal focus is making sure that people in this community are aware that this has happened. And that once people hear about the story, they’ll come forward with additional information.”
The Phoenix Police Department said in a statement Monday that McAlpin’s arrest is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation and was assigned to the Professional Standards Bureau on Aug. 30.
The department has not answered questions about the officers’ status of employment while the investigation is conducted.
The Arizona NAACP has called for them to be placed on administrative leave until a full investigation is conducted into their behavior and for the community to be advised of the timeline of that investigation. The organization has also demanded the charges be dropped, that the police release the full body camera video and surveillance footage from the arrest, and that the police department immediately review and reform its protocols for interacting with people with disabilities.
“Tyron was not a suspect in an actual crime, he had not done anything wrong, and he also has communication challenges, his assault happened seconds after the police vehicle was put in park,” said Andre Miller, the vice president of the Arizona State Conference NAACP. “No true communication in this encounter was present.”
In June, the Justice Department released a report after a three-year investigation that found Phoenix police discriminate against Black, Hispanic and Native American people when enforcing the law, unlawfully detain homeless people, use excessive force, including unjustified deadly force, and that officers disproportionately target communities of color.
