Four of the country’s leading civil rights lawyers have joined resources to fight for justice for the family of a deceased Alabama man, who lost his life in a police-involved altercation. The team is calling for the Mobile Police Department to release footage of the unarmed 36-year-old Black man allegedly screaming before his premature demise, “I can’t breathe. I don’t want to be George Floyd.”
Jawan Dallas died on July 2 after police officers approached him after receiving a complaint about a possible burglary attempt in a trailer park, according to a report. Mobile police who responded to the call reportedly saw two men in a car parked a short distance from the complainant’s trailer. When Dallas, the driver, was asked to get out of the car he complied and then bolted, police claim.
“While attempting to identify one of the males, he immediately attempted to flee. The officers tried to apprehend the individual, and he physically resisted,” the police report said, adding, “During the struggle, an officer used his Taser to gain compliance from the subject.”
Officers used their stun guns multiple times on Dallas as they tackled and struggled with him. Police claim he attempted to grab the Taser from one cop but was unsuccessful. At some point after Dallas was handcuffed he was observed to be in medical distress, upon which EMTs were called and he was taken a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The couple who reported a suspicious man on the property would later insist that Dallas was not the person they saw, adding he was about 200 yards away from the home.
“That wasn’t the guy. That wasn’t the guy that I called for. I called for a guy breaking in and coming onto my property,” one unidentified member of the couple said to local station WALA in July, adding, “That man begged him to stop. Just kept hitting him, just on top of him, pounding on him. It’s just not right. What they done was wrong.”
The legal team representing the family, which includes Harry Daniels, John Burris, Ben Crump, and Lee Merritt, has called for the Mobile Police Department to release bodycam footage of the violent arrest. However, the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that police are not required to release the footage.
The new call came after the family had a chance to view the bodycam videos that led up to his death almost five months after Dallas was killed.
“This is one of the worst days of my life,” Phil Williams, the father of Jawan Dallas, said at a press conference Wednesday, Nov. 22, after watching the video, according to AL.com, “Mobile Police Department, you straight murdered my son. You were not there to serve and protect him, you were there to destroy. You killed him.”
Daniels, who also viewed the video last week, disputed earlier reports that Dallas was hit with only two Taser strikes, saying at the news conference, “We heard almost 13 [Taser] cycles. Now we don’t know if those cycles actually struck his body. But we know it was 13 times, we know he was begging for his life, telling the officers ‘I cannot breathe, help me.’”
In a statement obtained by Atlanta Black Star, the team heralds a new call for transparency, hoping this will help Dallas’ family receive justice.
“It’s no secret why the Mobile Police Department doesn’t want to release this video. It shows their officers illegally accosting, assaulting, and killing an unarmed innocent man while he begs for his life screaming ‘I can’t breathe. I don’t want to be George Floyd.’ Of course, they don’t want the public to see that,” the statement reads.
“But this isn’t about what the Mobile Police Department wants. It’s about justice,” the statement continued.
The lawyers argue that the public has a right to see this video and that people across the nation “deserve to know what kind of officers the Mobile Police Department are (sic) protecting, the kind of officers who would do this to an innocent man begging for his life.”
The group of lawyers all believe that as long as the two officers, who have been placed on administrative leave, are still listed as members of the department no one is safe.
While the bodycam footage has not been released, transcripts of the altercation were made public.
Daniels released a statement to this publication that suggests the suspect was not in the caller’s home, a misdemeanor crime that should not have been paid with the man’s life.
“To be clear, Alabama State Law set the maximum penalty of Misdemeanor Criminal Trespass in the Third Degree at up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $200. That means Chief Prine’s officers struck Jawan Dallas, tased him multiple times before he died over a Class C misdemeanor that, according to witnesses, he didn’t even commit,” the statement stated.
The department has not responded to the new call to release the footage.
