Driven to hospital, Virginia man tased, shackled and dies in police custody
By Ari Melber
When three Virginia police officers put Linwood Lambert in a squad car around 5 a.m. on May 4, 2013, they said they were taking him to the ER for medical attention because he was speaking delusionally. Just over an hour later, Lambert died in police custody.
He was never given medical care, though the officers of South Boston, Va. did drive him to the hospital. He was not initially put under arrest, though the officers ultimately arrested him, shackled his hands and legs, and tased him repeatedly. While in custody he was agitated and ran from the officers. Ambulance workers say police later claimed he fought them at a time when videos show he was actually unconscious. Police dispute that account and deny allegations of excessive force.
Over two years later, there have been no charges and no full public accounting of what happened. But a new investigation, including police videos obtained exclusively by MSNBC, shows the deadly trip for the first time.
As the officers pulled up to the hospital, Lambert kicked out the squad car window.
Video from inside the car shows officers yelling at him to stop. When they cracked the passenger door, Lambert jumped out, sprinting roughly 20 feet towards the ER entrance and crashing into the building’s glass doors.
The officers ran after him and began tasing him. In response, Lambert’s body goes stiff and, with his hands cuffed, his arms could not break the fall when he hit the cement. The three officers surrounded him on the ground.
One ordered him to “stay down;” another, Officer Bratton, told him, “Every time you get up, I’m going to pop you.”
Lambert told them, “I didn’t do nothing,” and can be heard moaning in the recording. The officers tell Lambert to lie down, stay down, get on his belly, and roll over – while warning they will taser him again.
“I’m going to light you up again – roll over, roll over, turn over!” Bratton says.
Lambert remained on the ground, saying OK, but the officers tased him again. They restrained his legs with shackles.
Then, as Lambert appears subdued on the video, the officers warned Lambert they would taser him again. “I’m going to hit you again,” Bratton tells him.
Then Lambert says, “I just did cocaine.”
For the first time that night, officers tell Lambert he is under arrest, calling it in for disorderly conduct and destruction of property.
Lambert pleads to the officers, “Why are you trying to kill me, man?,” and asks them to stop the tasing, saying, “don’t do it, please don’t do it, please officers.”
As videos from the hospital and police cars show, the entire scene plays out right in the doorway to the ER, with nurses and hospital staff watching. But then the officers make a fateful decision – to take Lambert away without getting him medical care, the original reason they took him into custody.
Instead, they hauled him back into the squad car and began a new round of tasing.
Police video shows Lambert shackled and subdued in the car, apparently restrained, as officers warn him again and tell him to sit up.
“Act like you got some sense,” says one officer. Another warns, “sit up or I’m going to tase you again.” Reaching into the car with two Tasers, the officers tase Lambert as he slumps down in the seat.
A single, 5-second Taser discharge carries 50,000 volts and generally incapacitates a person, because it temporarily turns the human body into an electricity conductor. Law enforcement experts caution against repeat tasings.
Yet the three officers discharged their Tasers a total of 20 times over roughly half an hour. (The figures are from company device reports issued by Taser International, obtained by MSNBC.)
Most of those discharges were from Officer Bratton, who used her Taser 15 times, including 10 times in a two-minute span.
South Boston prosecutors seem intent on sweeping Linwood Lambert’s death at the hands of police (who acted more like vigilantes) under the rug.