Community organizations are demanding the permanent termination of officers involved in the case of a man who died after suffering a stroke in Dakota County jail without receiving proper medical aid.
“They cannot cover this up,” Toshira Garraway Allen, founder of Families Supporting Families, said during the conference. “We see it for ourselves. We see what is happening to human beings right here in the state of Minnesota.”
Allen spoke Monday at a press conference at the Dakota County Judicial Center demanding the county, state and law enforcement agencies take accountability for the death of Kingsley Fifi Bimpong. Other groups involved included the Minnesota Freedom Fund, Minneapolis NAACP and Black Lives Matter Minnesota. The groups’ demands include that:
Eagan Police Department terminate all officers involved in the arrest of Bimpong.
Dakota County terminate correctional officers responsible for Bimpong’s care and custody during his detention.
The Dakota County Attorney’s Office recuse itself and refer the case to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office for an independent criminal probe.
The Minnesota POST Board initiate disciplinary proceedings against all law enforcement officers at the scene who failed to render medical aid or perform their sworn duty to preserve life.
“He needed help, but what he got was a cell that turned into a coffin, and it happened because when they looked at him, they didn’t see his humanity,” Elizer Darris, executive director of Minnesota Freedom Fund, said during the conference.
What happened
Kingsley Fifi Bimpong (Courtesy of Robins Kaplan LLP)
Bimpong, 50, of Cottage Grove, was arrested Nov. 16 in Eagan after he drove into oncoming traffic and onto a median, according to a federal lawsuit filed by his family for $120 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Bimpong got on the road after leaving his postal service job early, reporting to his employer that he was experiencing a headache and vision loss. Eagan officers said they believed Bimpong was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Video footage of Bimpong in a jail cell shows him incoherent and in distress on the floor of a Dakota County jail cell, lying in his own urine for close to three and a half hours until he was reported unresponsive, according to the lawsuit.
He was then taken to United Hospital in St. Paul and determined to be brain-dead by medical professionals. Three days later, Bimpong’s family decided to take him off a ventilator.
‘Could have been any of you’
Darris said officers involved in the incident watched as Bimpong slowly died in front of their eyes. It was clear that he needed help, he said, but officers continued to report “Inmate OK” despite his condition. Bimpong died because officers didn’t see in him their own brother, uncle, cousin or son, he said; instead, they saw a criminal.
“Here’s the bottom line, Kingsley could have been any last single one of you,” Darris said. “Any single one of you could have found yourself lying on the floor begging, hoping and pleading that someone would see your humanity and intervene.”
The incident is a clear result of racial profiling, said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. Gross, a retired nurse and active medical paralegal, said those involved, from the police officers who arrested Bimpong to the correctional officers who watched as he died, have all received the proper training for their roles to determine when someone is in need of medical attention.
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“The level of medical care that people get in the jails is frankly appalling,” Gross said. “I would liken it to no medical care.”
Gross said officers failed to take Bimpong’s pulse, follow medical protocol and were heard on video speculating that Bimpong was suffering a medical emergency.
“Health care should be a human right, and people who are in jails or prisons are human beings just like everybody else … this man was a working man, and he did not deserve to be treated the way he was,” said Trahern Crews, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota. “We treat animals better than we treat human beings, especially Black human beings, here in the state of Minnesota.”
Spokespeople for Dakota County and the city of Eagan stated that they could not offer a comment on the group’s demands due to the pending litigation.
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