A Black man who was tasered, punched, and left hospitalized after an arrest by Alabama police earlier this month has died Tuesday.
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John Daniel “LJ” Scott Jr., 39, died from his injuries sustained in an April 15th arrest by the Decatur Police Department, his family’s lawyers said.
According to ABC News, 911 was called by his mother to report he was suffering a mental health crisis.
Upon arriving at the scene, Decatur police offered Scott a choice: he could either be transported to a hospital for evaluation or taken to jail. When he declined to get into the ambulance, the officers became agitated. They attempted to arrest him, leading to a struggle in which they tased and punched him multiple times before placing him in the back of a patrol car.
As the officers struggled to place him in the car after handcuffing him, Scott repeatedly told them, “I can’t breathe.”
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“You can breathe,” one cop responded. “Stand up!”
“His condition worsened after being transported to Morgan County Jail, where he was left untreated until it was too late,” the attorneys said. It’s not clear what the official cause of his death was.
