Comment on this story

Comment

Editor’s note:

This story has been updated to include additional comments from the Salt Lake City Police Department.

Nykon Brandon was running across a street wearing his socks and underwear when Salt Lake City police officers confronted him, took him to the ground and tried to restrain him.

Police had been called on Aug. 14 to respond to a report about a man trying to steal beer from the Fisher Brewing Company. A 911 caller said that the man was “definitely a danger to himself” and that he “more or less” attacked someone at the brewery’s entrance before running outside.

When police arrived, Brandon struggled with multiple officers for roughly five minutes until his labored breathing appeared to stop, according to video of the incident. An officer tapped his shoulder and asked: “Can you hear me?” video shows.

“Is he alive?” another officer can be heard asking in the body-camera footage.

Police provided medical aid to Brandon, according to the Salt Lake City Police Department, but less than an hour later, the 35-year-old was pronounced dead.

The police department on Friday released body-camera footage of the fatal incident, announcing that its internal affairs division and an outside agency, the West Jordan Police Department, are investigating. All of the officers involved in the incident have been placed on paid leave, a department spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that the encounter was “a very dynamic, violent and dangerous situation for our police officers.”

“The suspect is seen on body-worn camera refusing to comply with multiple commands, immediately fighting with our officers, grabbing two of their guns and resisting while being arrested,” the spokesperson added.

Brandon appears to have been unarmed. The videos released by the department do not show Brandon holding a weapon. The department mentioned no weapon being recovered at the scene. However, officials did note that early in the encounter, Brandon appeared to grab at an officer’s belt. Footage shows him placing his hand near the officer’s gun before another took him to the ground.

A 911 caller requested in the initial call that “mental health resources” respond. The Salt Lake City police spokesperson said the department relies heavily on its Mental Health and Substance Abuse Unit to protect community members. To protect social workers’ safety, however, they “will not be called upon as an individual first responder when someone is being violent or when the situation is unstable,” the spokesperson added.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said in a statement that the department will use the findings of the investigations to evaluate policies, training and procedures.

Police departments across the country are grappling with how to confront people experiencing possible mental health crises. While The Washington Post does not track the number of non-shooting deaths by police nationwide, 21 percent of the more than 7,680 fatal police shootings since 2015 involved a person with mental illness, according to Post tracking.

In recent years, departments have implemented de-escalation policies and training to reduce instances in which police resort to using physical or deadly force. Such a policy was mandated in August 2020 by Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall (D). It requires officers to use de-escalation techniques like establishing rapport with a person and engaging in techniques that result in “voluntary compliance.”

The Salt Lake City Police Department spokesman said de-escalation is part of officers’ ongoing training.

“A person’s action — such as grabbing two officers’ guns while actively fighting and resisting — will at minimum, result in physical force being used — as officers are trained — so they can protect themselves and the community,” they added.

When police arrived on Aug. 14 and found a man later identified as Brandon running across the street, an officer said “stop,” approached Brandon and immediately tried to grab him, the officer’s body-camera footage shows.

Brandon then appeared to grab at the officer’s belt and gun, according to body-camera footage from another officer who arrived at the scene seconds later. That officer approached and pushed Brandon to the ground. Both officers tried to subdue the man.

“I’m going to Tase you,” one of the officers says, according to the footage. “You want to get Tased?”

After a third officer arrived and joined the effort to restrain Brandon, the man appeared to put his hand on an officer’s holstered gun, prompting one to announce, “He’s got a hand on your gun.” More officers arrived as the struggle continued, and the officers eventually forced Brandon’s hands behind his back and handcuffed him.

About four minutes into the encounter, four officers were holding Brandon facedown on the ground as he moaned and breathed heavily, according to the footage. Close to five minutes into the encounter, an officer said, “We can sit you up if you stop.”

Brandon did not respond and continued to breathe deeply. After moaning a few more times, he appeared to lose consciousness. The body-camera videos end as police begin to roll him onto his back.

The department said in a statement that officers provided aid to Brandon, including giving him multiple doses of Narcan, a medicine for reversing the effects of opioid overdoses. Brandon was transported to the hospital and pronounced dead less than an hour after the encounter began, according to the department.

It’s unclear if Brandon had drugs in his system. The city’s medical examiner has not publicly shared the results of his autopsy, and the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post early Monday.

The police spokesperson said the department has not received toxicology or autopsy reports, which “can take several weeks, if not months to complete.”

Hours before the violent encounter in Salt Lake City, police in neighboring South Salt Lake found Brandon intoxicated at a park and dropped him off at a detox facility about three blocks from the brewery where the 911 call was made, KUTV reported.

Local activists say nothing Brandon did justified his death.

“Stealing a beer does not equate to the death penalty,” Lex Scott, the founder of Black Lives Matter-Utah, told the Associated Press. “I don’t care if this man robbed 10 banks in one day. He didn’t deserve to die. He deserved to make it to court.”

Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/29/nykon-brandon-utah-police-death/