An Arizona man was left with third-degree burns across much of his body and no skin above his knees after police officers pinned him to the ground in record heat.
Surveillance footage shows Michael Kenyon, 30, talking on a cellphone and walking in a parking lot in Phoenix on July 6, when police pull up in a police truck.
Two officers could be seen getting out of the vehicle as Kenyon puts away his phone.
Within a matter of minutes, the officers could be seen trying to handcuff him and a scuffle between Kenyon and the cops ensues.
Two backup officers then arrived at the scene, and the four officers holding Kenyon down on the blacktop for more than four minutes as temperatures in the city reached 114-degrees Fahrenheit, with the asphalt estimated to be between 180 to 200 degrees, according to CBS News.
Eventually the cops handcuffed Kenyon and lifted him from the asphalt as they escorted him into the police vehicle.
Cellphone footage taken from a nearby balcony also showed Kenyon yelling out, ‘please, please, I can’t move, I didn’t do anything,’ KGUN reports.
He wound up spending more than a month hospitalized with burns on his face, arms, chest and legs, and chunks of skin are missing from above his knees.
Michael Kenyon, 30, suffered third degree burns to much of his body after four Phoenix police officers pinned him to the ground in record heat
The officers held Kenyon to the ground for more than four minutes as temperatures in the Arizona city reached 114-degrees Fahrenheit, with the asphalt estimated to be between 180 to 200 degrees
‘Phoenix police are demonstrating an utter disregard for human life over and over again,’ attorney Bobby DiCello said.
‘This young man was burned to the third degree because his skin was cooked on asphalt.’
Kenyon later told ABC 15 that he believed officers stopped him because his roommate had recently reported a theft from their home across the street.
‘So I walked up to them with my phone in my hand and said, “Hey what happened?” or “What’s going on?”‘
At that point, he said, two officers grabbed both of his wrists.
‘They said to me in a mean, hostile way, “You’re being detained,”‘ Kenyon said.
‘But I said, “I’m on the phone. What do you mean. I didn’t do anything. Please explain to me.” And they were like, “Why are you getting antsy? Why do you seem like you’re nervous?” I said, “I’m not. You’re scaring me. Can you please explain to me? Let me sit down. Let me sit down.”‘
‘I sat down on the back of some random person’s truck tailgate,’ he recounted.
‘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 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.’
Kenyon was walking through a parking lot, talking on a cellphone, when he said two officers approached him and grabbed either wrist
He said the pain was unbearable ‘like going through Hell and Hades… feels like your skin is melting off.’
‘The lady across in the high-rise said she thought an animal was dying,’ Kenyon said of the woman who recorded the incident on her cellphone.
‘That’s why she looked out the window. And that’s when she started recording me.’
After a while on the burning hot ground, Kenyon said he started to think he deserved the torture.
‘Deep down I think to myself, “I’ve had a bad past, I don’t deserve a lot of good things in my life. So I’m like maybe I did deserve this, you know.”‘
He had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear on a gun charge at the time, but Kenyon said he was unaware of the warrant – and the Phoenix Police Department later confirmed the officers at the scene did not know either.
Kenyon wound up spending more than a month hospitalized with burns on his face, arms, chest and legs
Much of the skin above his knees is now gone
Then, when he was in the hospital for over a month, Kenyon said officers were stationed at the hospital for several days, possibly a week and often kept him handcuffed.
‘They were just outside the room,’ Kenyon said. ‘They had this little clicker thing with the blinds [where they could look through].
‘They wouldn’t let me use my phone and contact my family… It took certain cops to break the rules to let me use my phone.’
He claimed the officers finally left after a friend called lawyers who showed up at the hospital.
‘He committed no crime, he’s never been charged with a crime,’ attorney Bobby DiCello told CBS News. ‘And he spent over a month in a burn unit with police peeping through the windows to see what he was doing.’
The attorneys have since filed a notice of claim, saying Kenyon will settle for $15.53million or he will sue the city in federal court.
‘Michael Kenyon is 30 years old. At an average life expectancy, he should live another 42 years. that is 15,330 days,’ the notice of claim said, according to KGUN.
‘We are confident that not a single one of you would choose to live in Michael’s disfigured body and traumatized mind for $1,000 a day and we are confident a jury would agree that this is a modest sum for what the Phoenix Police Department has caused to him.’
Attorneys representing Kenyon have now filed a notice of claim, suggesting he would sue the city of Phoenix for the incident if it does not agree to pay him $15.53 million
It goes on to accuse the police department of having a lack of training, engaging in unconstitutional practices and creating a violent culture – all of which were findings in a scathing Department of Justice investigation released in June.
‘The mayor’s and city council’s rejection of the Department of Justice’s finding is already well-publicized,’ the notice of claim said.
‘But this situation is very difficult to square with any [belief] that this is a department that is even minimally professional, accountable or respectful of the residents it is charged to “serve and protect.”‘
Lawyers representing Kenyon also wrote that they had ‘little doubt’ that the officers decided to pin him to the blacktop ‘due to a lack of training and supervision.’
‘Indeed, through 1,147 pages of Operations Orders, there does not appear to be a single word about the severe risk of injury passed by holding subjects against pavement.’
Police have previously claimed Kenyon was struggling with officers, prompting them to push him to the ground.
The matter remains under internal police investigation, a city spokesperson told KGUN as they declined to comment on the claim.
