Lawyers for White Cops Call Tyrone Johnson an "Evil Man" [more]
The city will pay $70,000 to the
teenage daughter of a man who died during a 1999 struggle with police
as they tried to arrest him on a traffic warrant. The settlement was
approved in U.S. District Court earlier this month and is in addition
to an undisclosed amount 15-year-old Ashley Johnson will receive from
Southwest Ambulance, which was transporting her father to Kino
Community Hospital when he died. A lawsuit by Johnson accusing the city
and the ambulance company of negligence and the city of excessive force
ended in a hung jury last year. Tyrone Johnson, 28, had a past
conviction for drug possession and resisting arrest, and spent about
nine months in jail for a probation violation before his Aug. 8, 1999,
encounter with the police that led to his death. Officers said they
used pepper spray on Tyrone Johnson to subdue him and after he was
handcuffed, he complained he couldn't breathe. He died in the ambulance
on the way to the hospital. The Pima County medical examiner found
Johnson had a significant amount of cocaine and traces of morphine in
his system when he died. [more] and [more]
Gasping for Air Tyrone
Johnson was "spent." He was gasping for air. He posed no threat to
anyone around him; he wasn't about to run, or to lash out at the cops
who'd beaten and pepper sprayed him, or to battle the firefighters and
EMTs who had loaded him face-down in an ambulance with his hands cuffed
behind his back. He was given no oxygen--something that is administered
as routinely as nine out of 10 calls, according to one of the
firefighters who responded to the call to evaluate and treat Johnson
after Johnson briefly fled from two Tucson policemen on Aug. 8, 1999. [more]
Improper Care? After
police subdued Tyrone Johnson with three shots of pepper spray and up
to 11 strikes with metal batons, Tucson Fire Department paramedics and
Southwest Ambulance EMTs failed to properly diagnose, monitor and treat
Johnson, according to testimony from a longtime emergency room
physician. [more]
