Police release body camera footage of Rhyker Earl restraint

Indiana State Police allowed the Jasper County Sheriff's Department to release the footage from three deputy cameras. Videos clearly show multiple officers and medics pinning Earl to the kitchen floor of a DeMotte home, holding him down for more than 20 minutes. Earl can be heard screaming for help, telling the people restraining him he's "going to die" and moaning and heavily breathing before his body goes limp and he becomes unresponsive.

Earl had several seizures on Sept. 8. Another seizure that night prompted his grandmother, Connie Widner, to call 911.



EMTs from Keener Township Emergency Medical Services who responded eventually requested police assistance, the sheriff's department said. Medics told police Earl was "suffering a medical emergency and demonstrating mental difficulties and significant resistance to the medical personnel on the scene." "The responsibility of the deputies was to prevent Mr.

Earl from harming himself or the EMT personnel while they provided medical aid," the Jasper County Sheriff's Department said in a statement Friday. A Jasper County Sheriff's Deputy enters the home just before 2 a.m.

on Sept. 9, according to the deputy's body camera. Earl is shirtless and appears to be trying to put a pair of shorts on.

Medics are already inside the house. "Can you leave me the (expletive) alone?" Earl says to one of the medical first responders as he walks away with the shorts still in his hands. A medic and deputy attempt to grab him by the arms but Earl brushes them off.

"Rhyker, sit down," Widner can be heard saying. "They're waiting for you." An officer is heard talking to Earl's grandmother in the living room about Earl's history of epilepsy and seizures.

Earl leaves the room to get a shirt from a bedroom, and at least two medics go with him. The light in the room is off, video shows. Someone turns the bedroom light on as Earl walks in.

Thirty seconds later, video shows Earl swatting at the air with his right arm. He appears to make contact with one of the medics. "Hey! Don't (expletive) touch the medic, you're going to the hospital," the deputy talking to Widner yells, running into the bedroom.

"Don't (expletive) hit him. You understand?" Earl appears to pull the pull chain to turn the light off just before the deputy reaches him. The deputy appears to push Earl out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

The video becomes black, likely because the officer is up against Earl. Audio from the video records the deputy telling him to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back. Earl is handcuffed.

"Why are you doing this?" Earl can be heard saying several times. "Guys, please," he yells over and over. "Guys, please, I'm begging you," Earl says.

"I'm gonna die." "Settle down," one of the first responders says. "We're trying to help you," another says.

As Earl is being restrained on the kitchen floor with his hands behind his back and his head tilted to the right, one of the medics administers medicine via a needle in his right buttocks. One of the first responders asks for a pillow to cushion Earl's head from the floor. They briefly roll him onto his left side in the recovery position, a body position in first aid used to keep a person still while opening the airway.

"You need to pull me up," Rhyker says. "We can't pull you up, okay?" the deputy replies. "Just stay there and relax.

" As Earl appears to continue to resist the first responders, video shows his head become pressed against a cabinet door beneath the kitchen sink. The pillow appears to no longer be under his head. Just before 2:23 a.

m., Earl appears to stop resisting. Officers take their hands off his back and arms for the first time just after 2:23 a.

m. and move him into the recovery position again. At 2:25 a.

m., medics roll Earl onto his back and check his pulse on his neck. He does not have one.

They immediately begin performing CPR. Police briefly had to pause chest compressions to tilt Earl so they could remove his handcuffs, video shows. Medics attached an AED to Earl while they continued CPR, video shows.

After several minutes, they carried Earl, hooked up to oxygen and an automatic chest compression device, outside and into the back of an ambulance. One medic told Earl's family that he had regained a pulse. "Right now, we're just trying to keep everything as is, and we're going to get him to the hospital quickly, okay?" he says to the family.

After Earl was taken to the hospital, his grandmother told a deputy he suffered from asthma but had no mental health issues. She said she'd never seen Earl "that aggressive" after a seizure before. Earl was taken off of life support two days later after his brain activity stopped.

In Friday's statement, the Jasper County Sheriff's Department said it has not drawn any conclusions about the actions of anyone involved. The ISP is still investigating the incident. Earl's family retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump , who has represented the families of several victims in high-profile wrongful death cases, including the families of George Floyd, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others.

The Lake County coroner said Earl's cause of death is pending..