Deaf man charged with police assault after officers tackle and tase him

(CNN) — Newly released bodycam footage shows two Phoenix police officers shouting orders to a Black man as he’s lying face-down on the ground – with one officer repeatedly punching him and another officer tasing him.

Tyron McAlpin, 34, is deaf and no longer accused of an alleged crime that prompted officers to physically confront him in a parking lot the morning of August 19. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office decided to drop an initial charge of theft against him, the office told CNN Tuesday.

But McAlpin now faces two counts of aggravated assault and one count of resisting arrest after Phoenix police said he took a “fighting stance” when first approached by an officer.

Police were trying to question McAlpin after a man said he was punched by someone who tried to steal his bike, according to an incident report. The man directed police to McAlpin, and officers followed him to a nearby parking lot.

As McAlpin walks across the parking lot, one officer calls out to the deaf man from his police car, the bodycam footage shows.

“Hey buddy, stop where you’re at,” the officer says. “Have a seat.”

The officer then gets out of his car, and within seconds, a scuffle ensues.

“His hands raised to deliver targeted punches at my face/head, and multiple swings with closed fists at my head,” the first officer who confronted McAlpin wrote in an incident report.

Surveillance footage from a nearby business shows the police car driving up to McAlpin. Within seconds, an officer gets out of the car and lunges toward McAlpin.

Body camera footage shows the officer was the first to outstretch his arms toward McAlpin while McAlpin’s arms remained by his side.

Almost instantly, McAlpin raises his arms up and appears to have his legs in either a fighting or a defensive stance.

Less than a second after that, both the officer and McAlpin are tangled in a brawl.

A second officer comes to help pin McAlpin on the ground, face-down. But McAlpin’s right hand is still in front of his body.

“Put your hands behind your back!” the first officer shouts to the deaf man. “Hand behind your back, now!”

When McAlpin doesn’t comply and lifts his head slightly, the other officer punches his head down.

One officer tases McAlpin several times before he is handcuffed and taken away. At one point, the officers describe their injuries from the confrontation:

“I think I broke my hand,” the first officer says. “Did he bite you?”

“Yeah,” the second officer replied.

Shortly afterward, a woman arrives at the scene identifying herself as McAlpin’s wife, the bodycam footage shows.

“That’s my husband. He was on the phone with me,” said the woman, later identified in a police incident report as Jessica Ulaszek.

“Well, he’s under arrest for assault on a police officer,” an officer tells her. “He assaulted somebody at the Circle K. If you can wait over there, I’ll tell you right about it, in a little bit.”

Ulaszek tells officers her husband is disabled, and the two were communicating on the phone via sign language.

“He’s deaf and he’s got cerebral palsy. And I’ve been on the phone with him since Circle K,” Ulaszek said.

“I’ve been on the phone with him the whole time. He didn’t assault nobody.”

The body camera footage shows fire department medics responding and assessing McAlpin while he lay on the ground. The police incident report indicated he was taken by ambulance to a hospital “for precautionary measures.”

The two officers have not been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation and are actively working, the Phoenix Police Department told CNN Tuesday.

“This incident is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation and was assigned to the Professional Standards Bureau on August 30, 2024,” Phoenix Police said in a statement.

Critics of the officers’ behavior have prompted calls to drop the charges against McAlpin.

Following the violent arrest of a deaf man with cerebral palsy, leading civil rights groups and disability advocacy organizations are calling for the charges to be dropped.

“The continued demands to comply and follow commands was not being heard,” J.J. Rico, CEO of Disability Rights Arizona, told CNN affiliate KNXV. “So now to raise allegations that he was not complying, you have to consider the disability.”

“Disgust is probably the best way I can say it,” Sarah Tyree, president of the NAACP’s Arizona conference, told KNXV. “It’s just another stark reminder of where we are.”

The public outcry has prompted Maricopa County’s top prosecutor to personally review the case.

“Some in our community have voiced their concerns regarding the charges against Tyron McAlpin. I have great faith in the attorneys who work at MCAO, and those who have reviewed this case so far,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement released to CNN Tuesday.

“I also respect those who have raised concerns. Because of the attention on this case, I will personally review the entire file, as well as the totality of the video. I may reach a different conclusion, or I may not, but I believe this case merits additional scrutiny.”

Earlier this year, a Department of Justice report said the Phoenix Police Department violated the constitutional rights of people experiencing homelessness and disproportionately enforced laws against minorities, including those with behavioral health disabilities, CNN has reported.

As for why McAlpin did not follow officer’s orders, “The answer is easy:
He’s deaf,” McAlpin’s lawyer Jesse Showalter told KNXV.

“He couldn’t understand what they were doing,” Showalter said. “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.”

During a preliminary hearing on McAlpin’s case, both officers involved in the scuffle said they don’t recall much training on how to handle hearing-impaired subjects, KNXV reported.

“That’s about seven years ago. I don’t really remember much of it,” the first officer testified.

“Have you received any training in dealing with members of the public who have disabilities?” McAlpin’s attorney asked the second officer.

“Maybe briefly, but nothing that I recall,” he replied.

CNN has reached out to the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association for comment. In a statement to KNXV, the police union urged the public to not jump to conclusions.

“While some in the media are making this incident about race and discrimination, it is really about 2 police officers in full Phoenix Police uniform driving fully marked police cars coming under immediate attack by someone who was alleged to have committed a crime. Our officers have the right to defend themselves against attack by utilizing reasonable and necessary force based on the circumstances presented at the time,” the statement said. “We stand behind our officers and would caution the community on making judgments about the incident until all evidence is reviewed rather than a snippet of body cam footage.”

McAlpin’s initial pretrial conference is scheduled for November 13, and his trial is set for late February.

CNN’s Josh Campbell contributed to this report.

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