A man died in police custody at a Dallas hospital in 2022 after he was denied water and restrained by multiple hospital cops while pleading “I can’t breathe,” bodycam footage released Tuesday showed.
The disturbing incident, which was ruled a homicide, came after Kenneth Knotts, 41, had been taken by police for a mental health evaluation at UT Southwestern Medical Center following a traffic stop on Nov. 29, 2022.
“The guy was in mental distress, clearly he was irrational, but you don’t have to kill them to solve what is absolutely a medical problem,” family lawyer Geoff Henley told The Dallas Morning News.
As at least three officers from the UT Southwestern Medical Center Police Department pushed on his back, Knotts screamed and convulsed before falling silent, the footage, published by the paper, showed. Moments later, a medical staffer screamed, “No pulse! No pulse!”
The footage was obtained by Henley through a third-party subpoena from the city of Dallas, according to the report. The hospital declined to release the footage or identify the cops involved and had not previously disclosed the death, according to the newspaper.
The medical examiner reportedly ruled the cops were responsible for Knott’s death after seeing the footage and ruling the man died of sudden cardiac arrest after being restrained in a “semi-prone position,” which is a homicide. Officials had previously said the cause of death couldn’t be determined.
Earlier, Knotts had been taken to the hospital by cops as he embarked on a road trip from his native Austin with his girlfriend and two young sons, his mother reportedly said.
As their car approached Dallas, a tire blew out and Knotts told responding officers that Austin police were trying to kill him, while acting “reportedly acting erratically, combative and spitting,” according to an incident report.
After police took him for an evaluation, the shirtless man complained that his handcuffs were too tight and accurately predicted he would be killed in the next several minutes.
“Don’t kill me,” he pleaded, the footage showed. “Don’t smother me.” His repeated requests for orange juice and water were denied because the staff deemed him uncooperative. “We don’t feel safe with you,” a hospital worker explained.
As staffers and a hospital cop left the room, Knotts got off the bed and drank water out of a faucet while handcuffed. Officers then put him back on the bed as he protested, saying he needed more water.
While Knotts fidgeted, officers appeared to be tightening his restraints, or adding new ones.
“What the f— are y’all doing?,” the patient asked, only to be told, “Stop, we’re taking off the handcuff.”
“I need water, please,” he said multiple times as the cops continued to restrain him.
Knotts then yelled “I can’t breathe!” as officers pressed down on his back and limbs, echoing the final words of Eric Garner and George Floyd, whose deaths at the hands of police officers in New York City and Minneapolis were also caught-on-camera. In all three cases, the victim in custody was black and the authorities were white.
As Knott’s body went limp, all but one officer stood up as more than a half dozen medical staffers watched.
“He wasn’t breathing was he?,” one medical staffer asked, before saying “s–t” when she appeared to learn the answer.
Henley said the footage showed Knotts was in good physical health until the officers “were restraining his ability to breathe.”
Last year, Henley held a press conference to announce he was filing a lawsuit against the hospital.
“I feel quite confident that UT Southwestern Police Department killed this man, and that there’s not going to be a very good explanation in the least,” Henley said.
“Nobody wanted to give us any answers,” his mother Jocelyn Knotts added at the time. “The only answer I have is that my son is dead and they don’t know why.”
A Dallas County grand jury in November declined to indict any of the hospital cops or medical workers in connection with the homicide.