Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)

Woman says father deserved more from police

Man died shortly after being pinned by officers

- By Brooke Manning, Isza Amponin Zerrudo, Sam Ellefson and Arlyssa Cecenti

On a chilly morning in 2019, just after 3 a.m., Roy Anthony Scott called 911 to report that a group of people — one armed with a saw — was trying to break into his apartment.

This wasn’t the first time a dispatcher had sent emergency responders to Scott’s home in Sunset Gardens, a senior living complex in Las Vegas. Seven other 911 calls had been placed from his apartment over the previous year, logs from Las Vegas Fire & Rescue show, including one just hours before he called about an attempted break-in.

A neighbor and a relative said ambulance crews typically responded to Scott’s calls because of his known health conditions. But in the predawn hours of March 3, 2019, it was two Las Vegas Metropolit­an Police Department officers answering the call: Kyle Smith and Theodore Huntsman.

The officers knocked on Scott’s second-floor apartment door and asked him to come out, but Scott insisted the intruders were now inside his apartment and asked police to kick in his door, body-camera footage shows.

Instead, the officers shined a flashlight through Scott’s apartment window. They later testified they saw a man standing alone, looking off with a “thousand yard stare.”

When Scott eventually left his apartment, police said he came out holding a long, thin metal pipe and a cellphone. Smith drew and pointed his gun at the 65-year-old Scott saying, “put that down.” Scott immediatel­y dropped the pipe.

When police asked him to turn around for a pat-down, Scott refused and said he wasn’t comfortabl­e because he had paranoid schizophre­nia.

As the officers became insistent, Scott became more agitated. Body-camera video showed the officers trying to handcuff Scott and the three men falling to the ground.

Officers then turned Scott facedown onto his stomach and pressed the weight of their bodies and gear against him for over 90 seconds while struggling to put on the handcuffs before rolling him onto his back and side. Throughout Scott

repeatedly begged the officers to please stop.

Police left Scott lying on his side on a patch of sidewalk and gravel in front of the complex for nearly 10 minutes before paramedics arrived and told police to uncuff him. Once in the ambulance, paramedics started CPR on Scott, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The medical examiner’s report said Scott’s death was an accident caused by methamphet­amine intoxicati­on and not police restraint.

“My dad, he needed help. He didn’t need to be apprehende­d, handcuffed,” said his daughter, Rochelle Scott, 46. “He didn’t deserve to go out — no one deserves to go out like that — like a dog in the street.”

Scott filed a wrongful death lawsuit in October 2020 against the officers and Metro on her father’s behalf.

A judge in March 2023 found that the force officers used against Scott was unconstitu­tional, especially given that he had not committed a crime or threatened harm to the officers or himself. Attorneys for the officers have appealed the judge’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is pending.

Contested term obscures risks

Police said they noticed Scott was faintly breathing while lying on his side. One of the officers radioed dispatch, saying Scott was potentiall­y suffering from “excited delirium,” according to an investigat­ive report by police.

Metro does not have training specifical­ly for meth-induced crises. But it does have a policy on “Responding to Persons in Behavioral Crisis or with Special Needs” that identifies excited delirium as an “acute, excited state” that is “usually associated with illicit or prescripti­on drug use and manifested by behavioral and physical changes that may result in sudden and unexplaine­d death.” It says those experienci­ng excited delirium “should be considered in medical crisis.”

But some criminolog­y and medical researcher­s question the reality of excited delirium and how the police approach subjects in crisis.

Since 2014, all new recruits in the Las Vegas police department must take 36 hours of Crisis Interventi­on Team training to learn how to manage situations involving mentally ill people, as well as those believed to be suffering from excited delirium.

The officers who responded to Roy Anthony Scott’s call for help had been trained in crisis interventi­on the year before, court records show. But Peter Goldstein, an attorney who represents Scott’s daughter, said training programs don’t always mean officers are properly trained.

 ?? The Associated Press ?? This image from Las Vegas Metropolit­an Police Department body-camera video shows the altercatio­n between Roy Scott and two police officers who responded to his 911 call in the early hours of March 3, 2019.
The Associated Press This image from Las Vegas Metropolit­an Police Department body-camera video shows the altercatio­n between Roy Scott and two police officers who responded to his 911 call in the early hours of March 3, 2019.

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