A man in Phoenix is suing the city's police department after officers held him against an extremely hot pavement, leaving him with third-degree burns.
Michael Kenyon, who was never charged with a crime relating to his July 6 encounter with Phoenix PD, spent more than a month hospitalized with burns to his face, arms, chest and legs, while chunks of flesh remain missing from above his knees.
One of Kenyon's attorneys, Bobby DiCello, told ABC 15 that "Phoenix police are demonstrating an utter disregard for human life, over and over again."
"This young man was burned to the third degree because his skin was cooked on asphalt," he said.
According to Phoenix PD, Kenyon was stopped by police and questioned in a parking lot.
Video of the incident shows Kenyon struggling with police before being forced to the ground after he refuses to yield. Authorities keep him there for more than four minutes, despite it being a 114-degree Fahrenheit day in central Pheonix.
A witness to the encounter caught a cellphone video of the incident, during which Kenyon can be heard yelling "please...please... I can't move. I didn't do anything."
Kenyon told ABC 15 that the woman who recorded the footage initially "thought an animal was dying" but, upon looking, only found him, burning on the summer streets of Phoenix.
ABC 15 requested access to police body camera footage of the event as well as an incident report from Phoenix PD, but neither of those requests had been fulfilled as of October 30.
Kenyon claims that police stopped him because his roomate had recently reported a break-in at their home, believing he was a suspect. At the time of his arrest, Kenyon had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear on a drug charge, of which he says he was unaware. The police officers also did not know about the warrant at the time of the incident, according to the broadcaster.
“So, I walked up to them with my phone in my hand and said, ‘Hey what happened?’ or ‘What’s going on?’… One officer grabbed my one wrist, and the other officer grabbed my other wrist… They said to me in a mean hostile way, ‘You’re being detained,’” Kenyon told ABC 15.
He described being frightened during the exchange, drawing comparisons with George Floyd, and asking to sit down and talk with the police before he was wrestled to the hot pavement.
“They said, ‘Give me your arms. Stop resisting.’ And I think that’s when like five people were on me… And I’m just screaming for help. And I’m scared,” Kenyon said. “And I’m thinking this is literally [how] George Floyd was literally like… And that’s when I’m like this is it, this is me, this is where I guess I’m going to stay at… This is the end.”
The Phoenix PD gave its version of events to ABC 15 as well, saying that “[officers] made contact with Kenyon, telling him he was being detained so they could understand what may have occurred. The man struggled with police, which resulted with him being taken to the ground on the hot asphalt.”
“The man sustained burns to different parts of his body from the time he was on the ground,” the department said.
Kenyon said the pain was like "going through hell or hades," and that it felt as though "your skin is melting off."
After his lengthy recovery, Kenyon is now ready to take the issue to court, but he'll have to do so while dealing with an unrelated criminal charge. Shortly after ABC 15 spoke to the Phoenix PD about Kenyon, they charged him on a domestic violence incident involving his brother. The complaint includes charges for aggravated assault, assault, and disorderly conduct.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office told ABC 15 the DV charge stemmed from an incident in March and that city attorneys had no discussion with Phoenix PD about their entanglements with Kenyon.
Earlier this month, Pheonix sparked backlash after tasering and punching a deaf Black man with cerebal palsy.
