Dallas woman handcuffed and strapped to a stretcher dies en route to hospital after crying out for her parents
Warning: Graphic images
The death of a Dallas transgender woman en route to hospital after she was restrained by city police officers is under investigation.
Ladamonyon Dewayne Hall, 47, died on 26 May after being handcuffed and strapped to a stretcher while being taken into custody for a mental health evaluation.
Deputy Chief Terrance Rhodes said police were called at 12.45pm after receiving reports that Ms Hall had fallen over inside a business on Garland Road in East Dallas and may have been intoxicated.
Two officers - Jon Leach and Alan Hovis - arrived four minutes later and try to talk to Ms Hall, and later described her as being unresponsive to questions and in an “altered mental state”.
A 38-minute video released released on YouTube by the Dallas Police Department shows Ms Hall talking to paramedics from the Dallas Fire-Rescue Engine 49.
She then becomes agitated and can be heard yelling “they all left me” at the first responders.
Ms Hall then starts trying to take off her dress over her head and stumbles to the ground, at which point the officers restrain her face-down, pull her arms behind her back and place handcuffs on her.
She then becomes extremely upset and screams “you don’t touch me” while writhing on the ground.
“Stop it, you’re hurting me mother*****s,” she says as she continues to resist.
Two other police officers - Benjamin Lambourne and Brandon Pryor - arrive at the scene.
Ms Hall continues to protest, and at one point calls out “hey mum, hey dad”.
At around 1.18pm, Ms Hall is placed on a stretcher and loaded onto the ambulance while still shouting at the officers.
Officer Leach, whose body cam footage was released by Dallas PD, gets into the ambulance, and Ms Hall can be seen lying face-up on a stretcher.
A spit bag is placed over her head, and she appears to be struggling for breath.
“Just try to relax,” the officer tells Ms Hall.
A crew member from Dallas Fire-Rescue can be seen joking and smiling as Ms Hall struggles and screams.
At 1.34pm, the paramedic notices that she has gone quiet and leans over to check on her condition.
“Sir can you talk to me,” the male officer repeatedly says, addressing her as a man.
“I’d rather have screaming than that,” he says, referring to the silence.
The officer checks for vital signs at 1.36pm. By this stage, Ms Hall is completely non-responsive.
The paramedic begins to rub Ms Hall’s chest as he and the officer ask if she can hear them.
“Want to get that off of her?” an officer says, referring to the spit hood.
At 1.39pm, the paramedic then starts to perform chest compressions just before the ambulance arrives at Baylor University Medical Center.
The police officer can be heard saying that there seems to be a lack of urgency from hospital staff about Ms Hall’s condition, and asks officers to “holler at the nurses”.
Officers continue to perform CPR and chest compressions on Ms Hall as she was taken into the hospital, and she was pronounced dead in an emergency room at 2.05pm.
The Dallas Evening News reported that when the city police department was asked why they waited nearly two weeks to inform the public about Ms Hall’s death, a spokeswoman said the “family needed an opportunity to review the video”.
Deputy chief Rhodes said an autopsy was conducted on 27 May, and police are still awaiting the results of that and a toxicology report.
The Dallas Police Special Investigation Unit is investigating Ms Hall’s death.
The Community Police Oversight Board, which has been notified of her death, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
