This is the latest incident in the U.S. that raises questions about how police handle encounters with people experiencing mental health crises.
Lawyers representing Dizmang's family also released body camera footage in which an officer is repeatedly heard ordering Dizmang to put his hands behind his back while in the street and resisting attempts by the officer to put handcuffs on him. He then is taken to the ground with the help of another person in a red jacket — identified by family lawyer Harry Daniels as the team's paramedic
The death of mental unstable handcuffed man in Colorado has been ruled as a homicide. The now-deceased man was suffering from health issues such as obesity and asthma.
It's hard to see what is happening but, with the person in red holding his arm around the upper part of Dizmang's body as he lies face down, Dizmang soon stops moving. After he turned face up, others around him call on Dizmang to talk to them but there is no response.
Daniels noted that no one took any effort to try to revive Dizmang at that point. He also faulted the officer for treating the call like a crime scene from the start, rather than like a mental health crisis.
"The people who came to help him are the people who ended up killing him," said Daniels, who expects to file a lawsuit over Dizmang's death.
The Colorado Springs Police Department did not immediately respond to questions about the video and autopsy report.
In initial information released after Dizmang's death, the department said it dispatched a Community Response Team, comprised of a police officer, a paramedic from the city's fire department and a mental health clinician to respond to a call about a man who was experiencing a "mental health episode" at a home and he was found in a roadway. The officer tried to escort the man out of the street, a struggle ensued and the paramedic helped the officer, it said. The man was placed in handcuffs and become unresponsive, it said. Both the officer and paramedic were placed on paid administrative leave, it said.