Report: Handcuffed man’s death in Colorado ruled homicide

DENVER (AP) — The death of a man who was handcuffed after a psychiatrist’s team answered a call about being stuck in traffic last year has been ruled a homicide, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday by his family’s lawyers.

According to the report, 63-year-old Kevin Dismang died on November 22, 2022 as a result of a cardiac arrest that occurred while he was tied up and in a state of acute methamphetamine poisoning and was suffering from health problems such as obesity and asthma. A January 6, 2023 report signed by five doctors concluded that Deemang’s manner of death in Colorado Springs was determined to be homicide due to “physical containment at the cause of death.”

This is the latest incident in the US that raises questions about how police are handling encounters with people going through a mental health crisis.

Lawyers representing Dizmang’s family have also released body camera footage showing an officer repeatedly ordering Dizmang to put his hands behind his back while outside and resisting the officer’s attempts to handcuff him. He is then lowered to the ground with the help of another man in a red jacket, identified by the family’s attorney, Harry Daniels, as the team’s paramedic.

It’s hard to figure out what’s going on, but when the man in red holds Deemang’s face-down upper body with his hand, Deemang soon stops moving. After turning face up, the others around him call for Dizmang to speak to them, but there is no response.

Daniels noted that no one was trying to revive Dizmang at that point. He also accused the officer of treating the call as a crime scene rather than a mental health crisis from the start.

“The people who came to his rescue are the people who ended up killing him,” said Daniels, who expects to file a lawsuit over Dizmang’s death.

The Colorado Springs Police Department did not immediately respond to questions about the video and autopsy report.

In initial information released after Deemang’s death, the department said it dispatched a community response team consisting of a police officer, a paramedic from the city’s fire department, and a psychiatrist to respond to a call about a man who was experiencing a “mental breakdown.” episode of health” in the house, and he was found on the roadway. The officer tried to take the man off the street, a fight broke out, and the paramedic helped the officer, the report said. According to him, the man was handcuffed, and he stopped responding. According to him, the officer and paramedic were sent on paid administrative leave.

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