VIDEO: Oklahoma City Police Release Bodycam Footage Of Fatal Arrest Of Black Man Saying 'I Can't Breathe'

Oklahoma City police faced backlash Thursday for bodycam footage of an arrest from 2019 during which a black man died. The video has been compared to the fatal arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. It is one of several videos released by the Oklahoma City Police Department in the past week to improve transparency in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests demanding police reform.

The original incident took place on May 20, 2019, when three officers arrested a man identified as Derrick Scott, 42. A local shop owner, whose name was not released, called police after Scott allegedly pulled a gun on someone in the store’s parking lot.

Three officers arrived and ordered Scott to the ground. When he attempted to flee on foot, one of the officers tackled him on the curb. Scott struggled for several minutes as one of the officers sat on his back to pin him and another threatened to tase him.

A handgun was found in Scott’s pocket as the officers continued restraining him.

“I can’t breathe,” Scott told the officers and asked for his medication. One officers, identified as Jarred Tipton, responded by saying, “I don’t care.” A second officer, identified as Ashley Copeland, said, “You can breathe just fine” as Scott goes unconscious.

The third officer, identified as Sgt. Jennifer Titus,” is heard saying “he’s acting unconscious” before calling an EMT to the scene. One of the officers attempted CPR on Scott before he was rushed to a local hospital where he was declared dead.

Scott’s cause of death was attributed to a collapsed lung.

“They monitored his health throughout this incident and you can hear them narrate on the video that he continued to have a pulse and he continued to be breathing,” Capt. Larry Withrow told a press conference Wednesday. He then said an investigation was conducted, and the three officers involved were cleared of any misconduct.

The video was met with immediate backlash, with Scott’s mother, Vickey Scott, saying she was unable to finish watching it.

“You know, when they first tackled him on the foot chase and they looked at him and he said, ‘Don’t hurt me. Just don’t hurt me. I can’t breathe,’ and as he was telling them he couldn’t breathe and then the police officer said, ‘I don’t care,’ I couldn’t watch anymore,” Vickey Scott told Oklahoma City NBC-affilaite KFOR.

Several civil rights leaders in Oklahoma City have also called for a new investigation into the fatal arrest.

“If that is policy and there is a lack of focus on humanity and civility to anyone, then they certainly need to be addressing and changing that policy effective immediately,” local Black Lives Matter activist, the Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson told KFOR.