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This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument publication, a weekly deep dive right into a key legal justice situation. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here.
In 2016, a person named Tony Timpa referred to as 911 for assist in Dallas — and ended up dead. Initially, nearly nobody, together with his household, knew what had occurred to him.
I had simply moved to the town to work as an investigative reporter for The Dallas Morning News, after I bought a tip from somebody nervous that his neighbor had died in reference to a drug rehab. All he informed me was the man’s first title: Tony.
It wasn’t quite a bit to go on. I spent weeks trying by means of data of deaths or medical emergencies in or close to rehabs in north Texas. On a hunch, I searched the town’s knowledge for police incidents that month with the title “Tony.” That was the place I discovered the bare-bones report that stated a 32-year-old complainant named Anthony Alan Timpa had “died by unknown means.”
That meant three issues: Timpa didn’t die in a rehab, he had been the one who referred to as for assist, and that police needed to file an “in-custody” demise report with the Texas lawyer basic. I requested that document, and began asking for every little thing associated to Timpa’s demise: The 911 name, police physique digital camera footage, the total police report and his post-mortem.
I used to be instantly stonewalled. Under Texas’ open data regulation, the Dallas Police Department and the town’s attorneys argued they might withhold the paperwork because of an “ongoing investigation.”
Meanwhile, Timpa’s mom, Vicki, was determined to learn how her son had died. She employed a lawyer to file a civil rights lawsuit, initially naming the officers involved as John Does, as a result of the town wouldn’t even launch that primary data. Timpa’s father additionally joined the lawsuit towards the officers and the town of Dallas.
My investigation into Timpa’s death was published in 2017, primarily based on what we may present from interviews, lawsuit filings and the scant data we had. Timpa had a psychological well being breakdown whereas on medication, referred to as police for assist — and died whereas handcuffed and pinned to the bottom within the susceptible place, with an officer’s knee in his again.
The police refused to reveal practically all of the data about Timpa’s demise till the household and The Dallas Morning News sought them in courtroom; a judge ordered their launch in 2019. We lastly bought the body camera footage, which was launched throughout my final week at The Dallas Morning News, simply earlier than I joined The Marshall Project.
It took even longer for the Timpa household to get their day in courtroom. Their lawsuit was first slowed due to the police division’s stonewalling, then the continuing investigation (three officers had been indicted on misdemeanor fees, which the district lawyer later dropped). Then it was certified immunity.
As my colleague Andrew Cohen has previously explained, “certified immunity” is a authorized doctrine that protects public officers from monetary punishment for errors made whereas doing their jobs. Officials can act negligently — even recklessly — towards folks of their care with out authorized or monetary penalties. Critics say the doctrine has been construed so broadly that it often shields egregious and dangerous police actions.
Initially, a federal judge dominated that certified immunity lined the officers concerned in Timpa’s demise. But in 2021, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, saying the officers’ coaching had taught them that extended use of a susceptible restraint on somebody in Timpa’s state may end in “positional asphyxia demise.” An officer engages in “objectively unreasonable” utility of pressure by persevering with to kneel on the again of a person who has been subdued, the justices wrote, sending the lawsuit again to Texas for a jury to look at.
This September — seven years after Timpa’s demise — a jury lastly returned a verdict. After a week-long trial, jurors determined that three of the 4 law enforcement officials named within the lawsuit violated Timpa’s constitutional rights. But jurors additionally stated three of the 4 officers had been protected by qualified immunity. They awarded $1 million in compensatory damages to Timpa’s now 15-year-old son — although nothing to Timpa’s dad and mom.
After the decision, two jurors came forward at a press conference, saying the opposite jurors needed to award the household nothing — mistakenly believing the officers would have to pay any damages out of their very own pockets. That’s not true. Dallas police are indemnified, a separate authorized safety which means the town would pay.
Lawyers for the Timpa household have vowed that they’re not giving up. They’re planning to file a movement for a brand new civil trial, looking for damages towards the one officer who jurors determined was not protected by certified immunity.
Lawyer Susan Hutchison, who represented Timpa’s father, told The Dallas Morning News: “I’ll by no means perceive a verdict the place the jury discovered that the officers violated somebody’s constitutional rights and that resulted of their demise — however that’s OK? How on God’s inexperienced earth is that OK? How is that this not a inexperienced gentle for police to proceed to violate constitutional rights?”
“If a jury received’t cease them, who will?”
