Body Cam Footage Reveals Phoenix Officers Punching, Tasering Deaf Black Man with Cerebral Palsy

Mar. 15, 2025

Tyron McAlpin.Photo:Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter, LLC

Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter, LLC

A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy faces charges after an incident in which two White officers repeatedly punched and tased him in a Circle K parking lot in Phoenix, Ariz.

The Aug. 19 incident comes on the heels of a Department of Justicereportin which federal authoritiesfoundthat the Phoenix Police Department habitually uses excessive force and discriminates against People of Color.

Tyron McAlpin was walking and looking at his phone when two officers – responding to a report regarding a stolen cell phone – pulled up in a vehicle beside him.

In body camera footage, Officer Kyle Sue is shown grabbing Tyron McAlpin’s neck and punching him in the head multiple times.Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter, LLC

Responding, McAlpin raises his arms, and a scuffle ensues. Twelve seconds into the footage, Harris punches McAlpin, who stoops downward.

“Tase him! Tase him! Tase him!” Harris says before the officers push him to the ground, continuing, “Get your hands behind your back!” while McAlpin strains to keep his face from hitting concrete.

McAlpin holds his own head as Harris orders him to put his hands behind his back.

As Sue beats him, Harris tells him to “move” and tasers McAlpin – who is on the ground – four times. Harris searches his pockets – as McAlpin groans – dumping out his earbuds, keys and loose change.

The officers try to stand him up, but McAlpin – still moaning – cannot stand.

At one point in the footage, Harris says he thinks he broke his own hand. Sue claims McAlpin bit him.

“He’s not being combative, he just doesn’t want to go into cuffs,” Harris says into his radio.

Harris tells her that McAlpin is “under arrest for assault on a police officer," prompting the woman to inquire “What happened?”

“He assaulted someone at the Circle K,” Harris says, prompting the woman to retort, “He didn’t assault nobody."

“Well, he did now,” Harris and another officer both respond.

McAlpin is charged with two counts of felony aggravated assault and one count of felony resisting arrest, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office confirms to PEOPLE.

McAlpin’s initial pretrial conference is scheduled for Nov. 13.

In a statement to PEOPLE, the Phoenix Police Department said that the officers – who are under an internal investigation – “remain in their assigned duties.”

Interim Police Chief Michael G. Sullivan called the video “disturbing,” adding in astatementthat it “raises a lot of questions.”

County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement this week: “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.”

The attorney’s officetold CNNon Tuesday, Oct. 15, that they had dropped that earlier theft charge.

Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter, LLC, which represents McAlpin, said his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated and that the cell phone he was initially accused of stealing was his own.

“It has been almost sixty days since Tyron was attacked,” his lawyers said in a statement, saying they worried the city had promised to investigate in “an attempt to avoid confronting” what had happened.

source: people.com