New video of a man's mental health
crisis is prompting questions
about the team brought in to help.
Colorado Springs team of crisis
responders showed up to a man's mental
health episode back in November.
Minutes later,
that man was unresponsive in handcuffs,
pronounced dead at the hospital.
His family has asked that we show you the
body camera video we want to warn you,
choose to watch.
You will see his last moments.
Here's 9 news reporter Steve Stager.
Sir, have a seat.
Have a seat. Have a seat.
Standing in the middle of a
street not far from his home,
it was clear a man needed help.
No, Kevin Dismang may have been there,
but his mind wasn't.
His family is.
My dad has seen that
side of Kevin before.
Kevin and I were married for 37 years.
They know his struggles
with both mental health,
a personality disorder.
Um, slight schizophrenia.
He had a traumatic brain injury and drugs.
He had some mental health issues
and some substance abuse issues.
Contributing to each
other that day,
a week before Thanksgiving,
Linda Yutzy's ex-husband
called her in a panic.
He couldn't find his phone.
Panic that evolved
he. Became manic, I guess. He
was just frantic about it. He
was frantic. Their daughter,
Kendra James, is a paramedic.
Kenda told me to call 911, so I did and
gave her mom very specific instructions,
and I told her specifically to mention.
You need a mental health check.
You wanted a crisis response team to
come out here in Colorado Springs.
That's a police officer,
paramedic and mental health clinician.
Sir, put your hands behind your back, please.
Put your hands behind your back.
Meant to calm down a situation.
Get someone help.
This situation was far from calm.
We hear no efforts at the
escalation from anybody
on the body camera.
He briefly runs from an officer trying
to cuff him when the officer catches up.
Another member of the team.
The civilian paramedic comes at the officer,
and that paramedic takes Dismang down,
holding down his head and neck
while the officer gets the cuffs on.
Pretty soon a struggling dismang goes limp.
774 he'd never wake up.
An autopsy would rule.
His death was caused by multiple things.
Cardio pulmonary arrest in the
setting of physical restraint,
acute methamphetamine intoxication,
and some pre-existing medical conditions.
It's unheard of where a
individual would be allowed
to engage in that type of physical contact,
much less even being trained in.
Physical combat. That is not there.
That is not the function of the CRT.
Yashi is a sheriff's
deputy and expert on use of
force the medic and take him down to
the ground. Over here I handcuff him.
One of the few who told us today how odd
it is for non cops in a crisis response
team to take someone down like that
is an official member, civilian
Member of this crisis response team.
The whole purpose of the crisis
response team is not to be
in that situation. Civilian
paramedic down, dude you arrested.
Caught on blurred body camera again.
It was sent to us this way
by Colorado Springs PD.
He's at the hospital as medical
teams tried to resuscitate his men.
My first time taking
somebody down with this job,
talking about his takedown. She's
like, go help him. Restraining, yeah.
I go to pull drugs out and
he's like, no, go help him.
I was like Tesco football. Nice.
Nice. Good form. Good form.
Well, not so much. Not so. Much
there's a big failure.
Not for a family grieving.
Still left to wonder what
happened after their call for
help. You reach out to these
professional professionals for help and.
We end up at the hospital with.
With a dead relative.
So you've seen us report countless
times about the dangers of extended
prone restraint keeping someone who's
handcuffed face down on the ground.
We should point out that in this video,
the officer who handcuffs dismang is
very mindful about getting him off of
his stomach as soon as he's handcuffed,
which is what you're supposed to do.
In a statement, springs police said
tonight that members of their critical
response team are highly trained,
but quote, can't control every
factor involved in an altercation,
including intoxication and
underlying medical conditions.
The DA in Colorado Springs is still
looking at this use of force, Kyle.
You
know, Steve, when you look at this case,
here's another one where there's not
necessarily malicious intent involved,
but the whole point of having the
crisis intervention team is to
deescalate things so that a mistake
doesn't end up killing somebody.
Yeah, Adobe Yashi,
who looked at this video for us today,
says there are several moments
where he just doesn't understand
why Deescalation isn't used.
From the very beginning,
that officer is saying,
put your hands behind your back.
I need to handcuff you.
They get him out of the danger area.
To get him over to the trees,
he says that's another opportunity
to deescalate the situation,
try to calm things down.
Instead, it ends like this.
Steve stagger, thank you.