Black Deaf man with cerebral palsy violently arrested by Phoenix cops
ABC 15 Arizona reported that Tyron McAlpin, a Black Deaf man with cerebral palsy, was repeatedly punched and tasered by two Phoenix police officers during an arrest on August 19, 2024.
A video shows that as McAlpin was walking out of a store, two police vehicles suddenly swerved on a parking lot. Two officers immediately fight with McAlpin, pulling him to the floor, where they repeatedly punch him and tased him four times.
[Video clip, credit: ABC 15 Arizona]
Why did the officers arrest him? ABC 15 explained that there was a morning call from employees of a Circle K store that said a white man was causing problems and wouldn’t leave the store. This white man told officers that a Black man was trying to steal an older man’s bicycle and punched him earlier that morning. There is no evidence so far that this actually happened. But when this man told officers that the Black man across the street was the person who punched him, that’s when the officers went to the parking lot and arrested McAlpin.
McAlpin’s girlfriend arrived at the scene after the arrest and told officers that he was deaf and had cerebral palsy. The girlfriend said she has been on the phone with him since the Circle K incident. These things, including his disability, were not written down anywhere in the officers’ reports.
Shockingly, Phoenix police and county prosecutors have charged McAlpin with felony aggravated assault and resisting arrest. The officers, Ben Harris and Kyle Sue, said they believed that McAlpin was going to run and fight. They said McAlpin should have indicated he was deaf.
McAlpin has attorneys representing him. One of them said videos show that the officers’ claims are false and that there’s an obvious explanation why McAlpin couldn’t comply — because he is deaf and couldn’t understand what the officers were doing.
ABC 15 explained that Phoenix and the Department of Justice are in the middle of a legal battle on whether the police department needs federal oversight based on previous incidents of racial bias, excessive force, and violating the rights of people with disabilities. These things seem to be happening again in McAlpin’s case.
ABC 15 said McAlpin is planning to file a lawsuit.
The link to the article and videos are in the transcript.
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