Texas man yelled ‘I can’t breathe’ before being killed in police custody, body cam video shows

April 11, 2024

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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.

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“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.

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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!”

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“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.

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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.