Phoenix police were responding to a call about a white man creating a disturbance at a Circle K when they confronted a 34-year-old Black man instead, punching, tasering and arresting him on assault charges, accusing him of refusing their commands.
But Tyron McAlpin is deaf and has cerebral palsy, indicating he not only could not hear their commands but has a disability that would limit his ability to fight. And body camera footage shows they did not even give him a chance to comply, attacking him within two seconds of pulling up to him in a patrol car.
The real suspect was a white man named Derek Stevens, but when an officer spoke with him, the 33-year-old man claimed he was the victim, not the aggressor, telling the cop he had been attacked by a Black man who stole his phone.
Meanwhile another Phoenix police officer was interviewing the store clerks who had called them and were told that Stevens was the one creating the disturbance because he had walked into the store that morning claiming somebody had stolen his phone the previous evening.
He then laid down on the floor refusing to leave the store when ordered to do so by the clerks. The clerks also told officers that McAlpin was trying to help them get Stevens out of the store.
The cop reviewed security footage from the store showing McAlpin walking into the store with a black phone in his hand while Stevens was already inside the store.
However, the cop who took the white man’s word wrote in his arrest report that the phone belonged to Stevens, describing the white man as the “victim” and the Black man as the “suspect.”
But McAlpin was on the phone with his wife the entire time communicating with each other through sign language so she showed up to the scene to question the arrest.
“You guys arrested him for no reason,” she said, according to body camera footage. “I’ve been on the phone with him since Circle K and you guys went in there because somebody was f_cking with him.
“And you guys arrested him?”
But even though the video shows they clearly attacked him without giving him time to explain himself — as they did with the white man — they claimed to be victims as well.
“I think I broke my hand,” said one of the cops after repeatedly punching McAlpin on the back of the head while he was lying facedown on the ground.
The Aftermath
The incident took place on Aug. 19 and McAlpin is still facing three felonies, including two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and one count of resisting arrest with force – charges that could send him to prison for years.
Court records from the Maricopa County Superior Court website also show prosecutors dismissed the charge of theft against McAlpin because they had no evidence he had stolen the phone.
However, it does not appear as if Stevens was ever charged for disorderly conduct or for making a false report to police, according to the court website.
Online court records also show Stevens had been arrested on two felonies in the past, including a charge of endangerment in 2017 which is described by Arizona statutes as “recklessly endangering another person with a substantial risk of imminent death or physical injury.”
In 2020, he was charged with felony disorderly conduct with a weapon which is described by Arizona statutes when someone “recklessly handles, displays or discharges a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.”
He was sentenced to probation on both charges on March 10, 2022 but on November 2023, a judge granted him an early termination from his probation meaning he was no longer on probation when he falsely accused McAlpin of stealing his phone.
McAlpin, on the other hand, has no prior arrests in Maricopa County, according to the court website.
Maricopa County prosecutors nevertheless insist he needs to be prosecuted on the felony charges because they claim the cops had probable cause to attack and arrest him since he did not immediately bow down to their commands.
But McAlpin’s attorney, Jesse Showalter, who is preparing a lawsuit against Phoenix police, provided an understandable explanation.
“The answer is easy. He’s deaf,” Showalter told ABC15. “He couldn’t understand what they were doing. And he had done nothing wrong.”
“Everything I see in that video is Tyron just trying to avoid being harmed by these officers, and that only makes them increase the escalation and the violence that they’re using,” Showalter continued.
The USDOJ Report
McAlpin was arrested two months after the United States Department of Justice issued a scathing 126-page report against the Phoenix Police Department stating the following:
The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the City of Phoenix and the Phoenix Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law:
- PhxPD uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force and other types of force.
- PhxPD and the City unlawfully detain, cite, and arrest people experiencing homelessness and unlawfully dispose of their belongings.
- PhxPD discriminates against Black, Hispanic, and Native American people when enforcing the law.
- PhxPD violates the rights of people engaged in protected speech and expression.
- PhxPD and the City discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities when dispatching calls for assistance and responding to people in crisis.
“It’s hard for me to see how the city can come out and say with [a] straight face that it is meeting the DOJ report head-on when this man is being charged with assault on police officers for this incident,” Showalter added.
