US video ‘shows new black custody death’
NEWLY uncovered video appears to show police officers in Louisiana repeatedly punching and Tasering a black man they were arresting soon before he died in police custody.
Video on Louisiana TV station KSLA shows an altercation on April 5 between Tommie Dale McGlothen, 44, and four police officers in the city of Shreveport.
Mr McGlothen died on April 6 at a local hospital, according to a local coroner.
In the four-and-a-half minute video, which KSLA took off the mobile phone of a person the station said witnessed the altercation, officers can be seen wrestling with a man on the ground. At least one officer appears to punch him repeatedly, with another appearing to hit him with a baton.
A voice can be heard saying the officers were using a Taser on the man. At one point police get the man to his feet with his hands appearing to be handcuffed behind him and he immediately falls or is pushed backward to the ground. After getting him up again, they then walk him to a police vehicle and push him against it, and his head hits the bonnet.
The video comes at a time of nationwide furore over police treatment of black people, with mourners gathering in Houston on Tuesday to remember George Floyd, a black man who died after he was arrested by Minneapolis police.
According to local coroner Todd Thoma, police arrived at a Shreveport home on April 5 after Mr McGlothen blocked a driveway and followed a homeowner into his house. Police reported Mr McGlothen was “mumbling incoherently” and “exhibiting signs of paranoia and emotional disturbance,” the coroner said in a news release on Tuesday.
“Police officers used Tasers, mace and nightsticks (truncheons) to control McGlothen, who was agitated and combative and had fought with a homeowner,” according to the coroner.
The coroner said Mr McGlothen died of “excited delirium” but that his death possibly could have been prevented and it should have been obvious “he needed medical care”.
The coroner said Mr McGlothen was left in the back of a police vehicle for 48 minutes before it was discovered he was unresponsive and not breathing. “Although autopsy showed that Mr McGlothen suffered multiple blunt force injuries from both his confrontation with police and the citizens earlier in the day and that evening, no injuries were life-threatening or could be considered serious,” he said.