Authorities say police shot and killed a man Friday while investigating a bank robbery in suburban Baltimore and that a second man was injured. The shooting took place Friday afternoon near Lutherville, about 10 miles north of downtown Baltimore.
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“He was just hollering and screaming on the ground, and they just kept pushing him down, pushing him down, on his shoulder and back and stuff, hitting him”, Burch said to the Sun.
An attorney for Boyd’s family said his kidneys and heart failed.
“He didn’t have those bruises”. Boyd called 911 for assistance, asking to be taken to the hospital.
Boyd told arriving police he believed that an intruder was in the home, saying, “There is someone in the house”.
“Mr. Boyd was in need of medical attention, and the police responded with violence”, said Francis-Williams. None of the officers involved were wearing body cameras.
However, his fiancé Deona Styron tells reporters that Boyd told officers he could not breathe.
Police said Boyd’s girlfriend called police around 3 a.m. Sunday to alert them Boyd was acting “crazy.” Officers claim that Boyd then ran to neighbors’ homes and began banging on their doors.
Tawon Boyd was finally transported to the hospital after the altercation with police but at that point, he was already unconscious and would never wake up.
“I think they killed him”, Burch said. There is too many of them and they are too big. “The police beat him into intensive care, and now he’s no longer with us”.
Boyd was 5-foot-5 and 150 pounds, according to court records. Officers handcuffed the man and took him away, he added.
Though an autopsy has not been released, Francis-Williams said there was “swelling on the brain and fluid on the brain because the doctors attempted to drain that”. “I haven’t heard any officer articulate that his or her life was in danger or there was an actual threat of severe bodily injury or death”. “And not only that, one police officer got his arm around him like this, punching him”.
“They really were supposed to be there to get him to the nearest healthcare facility”, Francis-Williams said in a statement.
After receiving some sort of treatment, the report says “Boyd became so calm they asked a medic to check the suspect for a pulse” but “could clearly see he was still breathing”. She noted she also has yet to find any evidence that Boyd was violent toward the officers.
Styron did not return a message left at a number listed for her.
Cpl. John Wachter, a police spokesman, said it was not clear if there had been an exchange of gunfire with police.
Police say a “confused” Middle River man who tried to get inside several police cars was hospitalized following a fight with officers.
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The incident follows two other recent deaths of people engaged in some way with county police.
