Following a thorough review of bodycam and security footage, all charges against Tryon McAlpin, a 34-year-old deaf man with cerebral palsy, have been dropped. Initially facing charges related to his August 19 arrest, McAlpin was exonerated late Thursday night when Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell decided to dismiss the case after evaluating all available evidence, according to CNN.
The first charge against McAlpin to be dropped was a theft accusation, which led to a controversial police confrontation captured on video. On Thursday evening, Maricopa County Attorney Mitchell also dismissed charges of aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
According to the local police union, the officers claimed they were “under immediate attack” and that McAlpin had taken a “fighting stance” during the initial encounter, as reported by CNN.
Footage from the incident reveals a different narrative, showing McAlpin walking and communicating on his phone when a police car pulled up beside him.
As McAlpin attempted to walk around the vehicle, an officer instructed him to stop and sit down. Seconds later, the officer exited the car and engaged in a physical altercation with McAlpin. The officer’s incident report claimed that McAlpin raised his hands to deliver targeted punches and swung multiple times with closed fists at the officer’s head.
Contrary to the officers’ claims, surveillance footage from a nearby business showed the officer lunging at McAlpin as soon as he exited the car, with McAlpin’s arms remaining at his sides until physically engaged.
The situation escalated with the arrival of a second officer, who helped pin McAlpin to the ground, one arm trapped beneath him. Bodycam footage revealed officers repeatedly shouting at McAlpin to “put your hands behind your back,” but he could not hear them and, facedown on the pavement, did not comply.
When McAlpin lifted his head to look behind him, the officer appeared to punch him multiple times.
“I struck the suspect with a closed right fist in the center of his back, and gave him an opportunity to present his right arm,” wrote the officer in an incident report, per CNN. “After there was no response I struck the suspect one time with a closed right fist to the right side of his face.”
The second officer, not actively restraining McAlpin, tased him multiple times as McAlpin failed to comply with orders he could not hear to put his hands behind his back.
McAlpin’s moans and screams can be heard as he is repeatedly tased before being handcuffed and taken away. One officer remarked, “I think I broke my hand,” and asked the other if McAlpin had bitten him.
Shortly after the altercation, a woman identified as Jessica Ulaszek approached the scene and told officers that McAlpin, her husband, had been on the phone with her during the incident, as shown on bodycam footage.
“Well, he’s under arrest for assault on a police officer,” one officer tells her, also noting, “He assaulted somebody at the Circle K. If you can wait over there, I’ll tell you right about it, in a little bit.”
She informed the officers that her husband was disabled and that they had been communicating via sign language on the phone during the incident.
“He’s deaf and he’s got cerebral palsy. And I’ve been on the phone with him since Circle K,” she said. “I’ve been on the phone with him the whole time. He didn’t assault nobody.”
“Well, he did now,” one of the officers told Ulaszek.
Analysis of bodycam footage reveals that the first officer made physical contact with McAlpin less than two seconds after exiting his vehicle. According to CNN, the officer later admitted he had already decided to detain McAlpin before even stepping out of the car.
“Tyron did nothing to warrant police contact of any kind,” McAlpin’s attorney Jesse Showalter told CNN, saying that what happened in the footage was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
Showalter stated that his client had his hands “contracted throughout” the encounter due to his cerebral palsy, which the police misinterpreted as aggression.
McAlpin did not comply with orders because he could not hear them. According to the probable cause affidavit, police were responding to a report from a white male who alleged that McAlpin had punched him and taken his phone near a Circle K, though no employees witnessed the incident.
