Revealed: officers appear to hold Michael Kenyon, 30, to hot pavement and give him third-degree burns in July footage

Revealed: officers appear to hold Michael Kenyon, 30, to hot pavement in July, causing third-degree burns

On 6 July 2024, a day when temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona, reached 114F (45.5C), Michael Kenyon was walking to his local store to buy a soda when two officers of the city’s police department stopped him.

They hastily told him he was being detained, Kenyon recalls, without clearly stating why. Two more officers arrived.

Surveillance footage from across the parking lot, which was viewed by the Guardian, shows the 30-year-old on the pavement soon after, with several officers on top of him and holding him down. Once they lift Kenyon off the ground after roughly four minutes, he appears limp.

  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    751·
    2 months ago

    “I don’t really want to look at my body any more,” he said, noting it was too painful to see photos from the hospital. “Every time I see myself, I have flashbacks. And every time I see cops, I think, is he after me? And I know in my head it’s not true, but it just comes up.” He said he questions whether he could’ve done something differently. “I have to keep telling myself … I didn’t deserve this.”
    He added: “I just want the Department of Justice to take care of them and fix what they say they’re going to fix … I’m not trying to get attention, I just want my story to be heard because I hurt.”

    Oof.

    • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      2 months ago

      Man I feel for this guy. This is straight up PTSD. This kind of treatment should be considered criminal regardless of what he’d done.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
        10·
        2 months ago

        Kenyon has not been charged with a crime and a police spokesperson confirmed he was not the suspect that officers were seeking as part of a theft investigation.

        Hadn’t done anything.

        • IamSparticles@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Reminder that this is the Phoenix police. The same folks that assaulted and arrested an innocent deaf black man who has cerebral palsy because he didn’t immediately respond when they yelled at him to stop.