Prosecutors in Ohio have announced reckless homicide charges against two police officers in the death of a man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club in Canton while telling officers he couldn’t breathe.
Stark County prosecutor Kyle Stone told reporters Saturday that the charges against Canton officers Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch were brought by a grand jury in the April 18 death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old East Canton resident taken into custody shortly after a vehicle crash that had severed a utility pole.
Police body-camera footage showed Tyson, who was Black, resisting and saying repeatedly, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff” as he was taken to the floor, and he told officers he could not breathe.
Officers told Tyson he was fine, to calm down and to stop fighting as he was handcuffed face down, and officers joked with bystanders and leafed through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was in a medical crisis.
The county coroner’s office ruled Tyson’s death a homicide in August, also listing as contributing factors a heart condition and cocaine and alcohol intoxication.
Stone said the charges were third-degree felonies punishable by a maximum term of 36 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. He said in response to a question Saturday that there was no evidence to support charges against any bystander.
The Stark County sheriff’s office confirmed Saturday that Schoenegge and Burch had been booked into the county jail. An official said there was no information available about who might be representing them. The Canton police department earlier said the two had been placed on paid administrative leave per department policy.
Tyson family attorney Bobby DiCello said in a statement that the arrests came as a relief because the officers involved in what he called Tyson’s “inhumane and brutal death will not escape prosecution.” But he called it “bittersweet because it makes official what they have long known: Frank is a victim of homicide.”
The president of the county’s NAACP chapter, Hector McDaniel, called the charges “consistent with the behavior we saw.”
“We believe that we’re moving in the right direction towards transparency and accountability and truth,” McDaniel said, according to the Canton Repository.
Tyson had been released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years on a kidnapping and theft case and was almost immediately declared a post-release control supervision violator for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.