Store employees call Phoenix police about a white man causing a disturbance, but officers show up and attack the black man at the scene within seconds, shocking video footage shows

Phoenix police were responding to a call about a white man causing a disturbance at a Circle K when they instead confronted, beat, tasered and arrested a 34-year-old black man for assault, accusing him of refusing their orders .

But Tyron McAlpin is deaf and suffers from cerebral palsy, suggesting that not only could he not hear their orders, but he also has a disability that would limit his ability to fight. And body camera footage shows that they didn’t even give him a chance to comply and attacked him within two seconds of pulling up in a patrol car.

The actual suspect was a white man named Derek Stevens, but when an officer spoke to him, the 33-year-old claimed he was the victim and not the attacker, telling the officer he had been attacked by a black man who stole from him have phone.

Meanwhile, another Phoenix police officer interviewed the clerks who had called them and learned that Stevens was the one who caused the disturbance because he had entered the store that morning claiming someone had stolen his phone the night before.

He then lay down on the floor and refused to leave the store when asked to do so. Employees also told officers that McAlpin tried to help them get Stevens out of the store.

The officer reviewed security footage from the store that shows McAlpin entering the store with a black phone in his hand while Stevens was already in the store.

However, the officer, trusting the white man’s word, wrote in his arrest report that the phone belonged to Stevens and described the white man as a “victim” and the black man as a “suspect.”

But McAlpin was on the phone with his wife the entire time and communicated with each other using sign language, so she showed up at the scene to question the arrest.

“You arrested him for no reason,” she said, according to body camera footage. “I’ve been on the phone with him since Circle K and you guys went in there because someone was fucking him.

“And you arrested him?”

But even though the video shows that they clearly attacked him without giving him time to explain himself – as they did with the white man – they claimed to be victims too.

“I think I broke my hand,” one of the officers said after repeatedly punching McAlpin in the back of the head as he lay facedown on the ground.

The consequences

The incident occurred on August 19 and McAlpin still faces three felony charges, including two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and one count of resisting arrest with violence – charges that could land him years in prison.

Court records on the Maricopa County Superior Court website also show that prosecutors dismissed the theft charge against McAlpin because they had no evidence that he stole the phone.

However, according to the court’s website, it does not appear that Stevens was ever charged with disorderly conduct or making a false police report.

Online court records also show that Stevens has been arrested for two felonies in the past, including a 2017 charge of endangerment, which is defined in Arizona law as “recklessly endangering another person creating a substantial risk of imminent death or death.” a bodily harm” is described.

In 2020, he was charged with disorderly conduct with a weapon, which Arizona law describes as when someone “recklessly handles, displays or fires a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.”

He was sentenced to probation on both charges on March 10, 2022, but in November 2023 a judge granted him an early termination of his probation, meaning he was no longer on probation when he falsely accused McAlpin of stealing his phone have.

McAlpin, on the other hand, has no prior arrests in Maricopa County, according to the court’s website.

But Maricopa County prosecutors insist he must be charged with the crime, claiming police had probable cause to attack and arrest him because he did not immediately comply with their commands.

But McAlpin’s attorney, Jesse Showalter, who is preparing a lawsuit against Phoenix police, offered an understandable explanation.

“The answer is simple. He’s deaf,” Showalter told ABC15. “He couldn’t understand what they were doing. And he hadn’t done anything wrong.”

“Everything I see in this video shows that Tyron is just trying to avoid harm from these officers and that only causes them to increase the escalation and the force that they use,” continued Showalter continued.

The USDOJ report

McAlpin was arrested two months after the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing 126-page report against the Phoenix Police Department in which it found:

The Department of Justice has reasonable grounds to believe that the City of Phoenix and the Phoenix Police Department are engaging in a pattern or course of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law:

• PhxPD uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force and other types of force.

• PhxPD and the City unlawfully arrest, detain, and dispose of their belongings of people experiencing homelessness.

• PhxPD discriminates against Black, Hispanic and Native American people when enforcing the law.

• PhxPD violates the rights of people engaging in protected speech and expression.

• PhxPD and the city discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities when they send calls for help and assist people in crisis situations.

“It’s hard for me to see how the city can have a say [a] “It is clear that it is fully consistent with the U.S. Department of Justice report for this man to be charged with assault on police officers for this incident,” Showalter added.