*A year-old video from the Oklahoma City police has been released showing the May 2019 arrest of a Black man who died after telling officers that he couldn’t breathe.
The body camera footage was made available to the public last week, and it comes amid ongoing civil unrest over the police killing George Floyd last month.
The footage of 42-year-old Derrick Elliot Scott was released after requests from media outlets and Oklahoma City’s Black Lives Matter group, according to local TV station KOCO.
Scott was detained after police responded to a 911 call about a man with a gun. According to the report, when the police approached the area and saw Scott, he allegedly ran and officers tackled him to the ground. He can be heard on the video telling officers multiple times that he couldn’t breathe, per vice.com.
One officer responds, “I don’t care.”
Another officer said, “You can breathe, man.”
Scott goes in and out of consciousness, and the officers attempt to shake him awake. He died a short time later at the hospital.
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Eric Garner – “I can’t breathe!”
George Floyd – “I can’t breathe!”
Manuel Ellis – “I can’t breathe!”
Elijah McClain – “I can’t breathe!”
Javier Ambler – “I can’t breathe!”
Derrick Elliot Scott – “I can’t breathe!”https://t.co/Y31Y9cPUZG
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 10, 2020
According to a medical examiner report, Scott’s right lung collapsed, possibly due to “physical restraint,” as well as “methamphetamine, asthma, emphysema and heart disease.”
“I understand how George Floyd’s mother felt. I understand how the family felt,” Scott’s mother, Vickey Scott, told Oklahoma City TV station KFOR.
“You know, when they first tackled him on the foot chase and they looked at him and he said, ‘Don’t hurt me, just don’t hurt me, I can’t breathe,’ and as he was telling them he couldn’t breathe and then the police officer said, ‘I don’t care,’ I couldn’t watch anymore,” she said.
“It was very troubling to watch,” said Scott’s son, Derrick Ollie, of the videos showing his father’s arrest. “They stood by and did nothing and acted as if he was OK, when he told them plenty of times that he couldn’t breathe. They’re laughing and joking like something is funny, when this man was struggling for his life.”
According to Scott’s family, he had asthma and was truly struggling to breathe.
“To know that his inhaler was there and the officer threw it to the side,” Vickey said. “And when he said he couldn’t breathe, he said he did not care.”
The three officers involved with his death were temporarily placed on leave but ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing last year.
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said the officers “handled the call very well.”
“This guy runs from the police. He’s got a 90% occluded major artery in his heart,” Prater told the Associated Press. “I mean, he’s just a perfect candidate to die when you’ve got meth in your system and those kinds of physical ailments and then you fight with police. They [the officers] didn’t do anything wrong at all.”
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