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Oct 14, 2024

Shocking body camera footage shows Phoenix police using stun gun on deaf man with cerebral palsy

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com 06:41 14 Oct 2024, updated 06:43 14 Oct 2024 Comments Comments Disturbing body camera video shows the moment black man who is deaf and has cerebral palsy was wrestled

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com 06:41 14 Oct 2024, updated 06:43 14 Oct 2024

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Disturbing body camera video shows the moment black man who is deaf and has cerebral palsy was wrestled to the ground by police in Phoenix then punched repeatedly in head and tasered.

Tyron McAlpin, 34, had been walking out of a convenience store when two Phoenix Police officers arrived after they had been called to the scene because a white man had been disturbing staff working there.

But instead of asking McAlpin for identification, footage obtained by AZFamily shows the two white police officers pummeled the man they believed to be their suspect.

McAlpin was punched at least 10 times by police after being wrestled to the ground before being tasered a further four times just as the black man walked out of the Circle K, yet it was a white man who had been disturbing staff working there.

He was unable to communicate with them because he was unable to hear anything the officers were saying while his cerebral palsy hindered his attempts to defend himself.

McAlpin is now facing felony aggravated assault and resisting arrest charges.

Aside from bodycam footage from Officers Ben Harris and Kyle Sue, surveillance camera footage also captured the incident from above as McAlpin appeared to be walking out of the store and attempting to avoid the arriving police patrol car.

Within two seconds of the officers leaving their car, they set upon McAlpin despite having information that a man with a completely different description had been causing the disturbance in the store.

The real suspect was a white man by the name of Derek Stevens, 33, but when an officer spoke with him, Stevens took advantage of the situation and told police the man they were looking for was McAlpin, according to the Atlanta Black Star.

Stevens told police that he was the victim while informing them he had been attacked by a black man who had stolen his phone.

The incident, which occurred on August 19, left McAlpin facing three felonies, including two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and one count of resisting arrest with force. A charge of theft against him was dropped.

Stevens, meanwhile, has not been charged with any crime so far, including making a false report to police, according to the Maricopa County court website.

Further footage shot inside the store sees a third Phoenix police officer interviewing the Circle K store clerks who had summoned them in the first place.

They confirmed to the officers that Stevens was the one creating the disturbance, claiming someone had stolen his phone the previous day.

He then laid down on the floor and ignored instructions by the staff to leave.

The workers also explained to the officers how McAlpin had been helping to get Stevens out of the store.

Security footage showed McAlpin walking into the store with his phone while Stevens was inside.

McAlpin had been using his phone and communicating with his girlfriend using sign language.

She could later be heard on camera berating cops after they wrongfully arrested him.

'You guys arrested him for no reason,' the woman could be heard saying on the bodycam.

'I've been on the phone with him since Circle K and you guys went in there because somebody was f****** with him. And you guys arrested him?'

'How are you on the phone if he's deaf?' one officer asked her.

'We use sign language!' McAlpin's exasperated girlfriend responds.

McAlpin has no prior arrests in Maricopa County, while Stevens has been arrested on two felonies in the past, including a charge of endangerment in 2017.

McAlpin's family are now planning to sue Phoenix police.

'The answer is easy. He's deaf,' McAlpin's lawyer Jesse Showalter told ABC15. 'He couldn't understand what they were doing. And he had done nothing wrong.'

'Everything I see in that video is Tyron just trying to avoid being harmed by these officers, and that only makes them increase the escalation and the violence that they're using.'

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