Cop says ‘I don’t care’ to man who died after saying he can’t breathe
Chilling video has emerged in the death of a black man being pinned to the ground by police in Oklahoma City last year, pleading “I can’t breathe!” — to which an officer responds, “I don’t care.”
In the footage released by police, Derrick Scott, 42, is seen being restrained by three officers using their knees and hands as they remove a pistol from his pocket and hold him for about 13 minutes before paramedics arrive.
Police said they were responding to reports of a black man who displayed a handgun during an argument on May 20, 2019.
“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Scott says repeatedly, begging for what appears to be an inhaler on the ground after a foot chase, according to KFOR.
“I don’t care,” Officer Jarred Tipton can be heard replying.
Another officer adds a couple of minutes later: “You can breathe just fine.”
A cop later tries to administer CPR to the apparently unresponsive man before paramedics arrive. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
According to an autopsy obtained by NBC News, Scott suffered a right pneumothorax, or collapsed lung.
The autopsy — which listed his manner of death as “undetermined” — said the police actions did not result in “fatal trauma.”
It said “significant” factors contributed to his death, including physical restraint, recent methamphetamine use, asthma, bullous emphysema and atherosclerotic heart disease, according to NBC News.
Police Capt. Larry Withrow said a probe by the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office cleared Tipton and the two other cops — Ashley Copeland and Sgt. Jennifer Titus — of misconduct.
“In reviewing the actions of your officers I saw nothing inappropriate; nor was there any evidence of misconduct by your officers,” DA David Prater wrote, according to the Oklahoman.
“They did exactly what they should have done under the circumstances and handled the call very well,” he added.
Withrow said the techniques the cops used to restrain Scott were consistent with those they learned at the police academy to help minimize injury to suspects.
He said one officer placed her knee across the man’s shoulder blades while another straddled his waist before sliding down to his legs once control had been achieved, the paper reported.
Withrow said that once Scott complained he couldn’t breathe, the cops rolled him over into a “recovery position” and called for medical help.
“I don’t know that there is any more that they could have done to monitor the suspect or ensure his health,” said Withrow, who attributed Tipton’s dismissive words to Scott to the “heat of a conflict.”
“Certainly that may be something an officer says,” he told KFOR. “Just understand the officers are fighting with someone at that point.”
But the Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson of Black Live Matters OKC said she believed Tipton really meant he did not care about Scott’s pleas.
“When he said it, I believed him, and that’s problematic because that means that you’re a person who’s not even acknowledging and just fine with saying, literally, when someone says ‘I’m in crisis’ ‘I don’t care,’” Dickerson said, the news outlet reported.
Scott’s mother, Vickey Scott, reviewed portions of the footage, which was released after demands by Black Lives Matter after protests over the death of George Floyd, who also was heard saying he couldn’t breathe while being detained by Minneapolis cops.
She called police actions on her son “one of the most inhumane things” she had ever seen.
“They did not do anything for him. They treated him like he was an animal. He was trying to get his breath. He was trying to breathe, and they ignored him the whole time, like he was nothing. They even treat animals better than they treated my son,” she told the Oklahoman.
“It’s very hard. I want every mother to watch that … and imagine that’s your son’s last so many minutes of life and he’s dying and they’re saying that he’s faking,” she said.
“My heart is just broken. I want the officers to be convicted of killing my son. I want something to be done about police officers being more compassionate when people tell them they can’t breathe,” the mother added.