Man Complains He Can’t Breathe, Dies After Police Hogtie Him
SOUTHAVEN, Miss., July 20 (UPI) — A 30-year-old Memphis man who had reportedly been hogtied and put on a stretcher by police died Saturday after telling officers he couldn’t breathe due to asthma.
Troy Goode died two hours after he was restrained by police in Southaven, Miss., for “erratic” behavior.
Goode and his wife were on their way home after attending a Widespread Panic concert when he unexpectedly exited their vehicle and began acting “erratically,” his family’s attorney, Tim Edwards, told the Clarion Ledger. Goode had reportedly been drinking and was unable to drive.
“There was not any violent conduct,” Edwards said, “just erratic.”
Police were called to the scene, and officers tied Goode’s feet and hands together, and placed him face-down on a stretcher. Police Chief Tom Long said officers had been told Goode was having an “alleged LSD overdose.
“The officers on scene and ambulance personnel and hospital personnel felt like the information of the alleged overdose fit the protocol that they were seeing of his actions,” Long said.
Edwards told WREG-TV in Memphis a witness heard Goode, who has asthma, yell out that he couldn’t breathe. Another bystander, David McLaughlin, took a video recording as Goode was put into an ambulance.
“Paramedics arrived on scene, and I see them put him in a four-point restraint or hogtie, I don’t know how else to describe it,” McLaughlin said. “His legs were crossed, pulled back, by my vantage point, his hands were pulled back, and I think affixed to at least one of his legs.
“He looked to me like he was struggling or convulsing or both. He appeared to be in distress to me.”
Goode was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in DeSoto, Miss., where he died two hours later. Officials have not confirmed the cause of death.
“I don’t know the cause of death, and I’m not going to speculate on it, nor am I going to point the finger at this point in time,” Edwards said. “We don’t know what happened in between the time the police took him off and the time the family was notified.
“There was no threatening behavior. No police officer was threatened in life or limb.”
Goode was married and had a 15-month old son. He worked as a chemical engineer.
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