The Tucson, Arizona chief of police resigned after the death of a young man who was tackled to the ground for 12 minutes by three officers, under circumstances that are under investigation. Carlos Ingram Lopez, 27, died on April 21 in this city in the southwest of the United States. The police responded to an emergency call at his grandmother's home where the young man of Latin American origin was naked and very agitated.
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The video released by local authorities on Wednesday shows the three men, two white police officers and a black policeman, chasing the unarmed victim into the garage of the house where they handcuffed him before placing him on the ground, facing against the ground.
The young man will begin by apologizing, before moaning, calling his grandmother for help, saying "I can't breathe anymore". Twelve minutes later, he was unconscious, "a victim of cardiac arrest," according to Tucson police chief Chris Magnus, who resigned Wednesday night. It is up to the municipal authorities to accept it or not, but the mayor of Tucson, Regina Romero, said in a statement to AFP that the chief should not resign.
"No intention of harming," police say
Even if the death of Carlos Ingram Lopez precedes that of George Floyd by more than a month, the video in which he complains of suffocation inevitably echoes the death of the black forties under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis. For Chief Magnus, if his men did not act in accordance with the practices in force in his service, there was no intention to harm. "He was not hit, he was not wrenched in the neck or throttled," he said.
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According to him, the autopsy of the victim revealed a high dose of cocaine in his body and an abnormal size of the heart, but could not precisely determine the cause of death. "It is irresponsible and unfair to say that he was killed by the police," said Chris Magnus. The prosecutor's office is still investigating the death, but has not brought any charges against the three police officers, who have resigned.
Reopening of investigations in Colorado
In neighboring Colorado, Governor Jared Polis has asked to reopen investigations into the death of 23-year-old black man Elijah McClain in August 2019 in Aurora. The victim died of a heart attack after being arrested by police officers who had wrenched his neck and forcibly injected him with a powerful sedative.
A police officer claimed that McClain, who was carrying no weapons, attempted to seize his revolver. The case had not given rise to any prosecution and a petition launched to reopen the investigation collected Thursday more than three million signatures.