Three Dallas police officers are liable for the death of Tony Timpa, a white man who died after officers pinned him to the ground for more than 14 minutes in 2016, a federal jury in Texas decided on Wednesday, ending a civil trial that had faced many delays.
The jury of five men and three women found that officers Dustin Dillard, Raymond Dominguez, and Danny Vasquez were responsible for Timpa’s death, and they awarded $1 million to his 15-year-old son, according to Texas news outlets. The jury found that two of the officers, Dillard and Vasquez, had qualified immunity, shielding them from civil liability on the grounds that they likely didn’t know that their actions were wrong.
A fourth officer, Sargeant Kevin Mansell, was not deemed liable for the death of the 32-year-old logistics broker.
The $1 million was far less than the hundreds of millions of dollars that lawyers for Timpa’s family had called for during the trial, which started last week.
Timpa’s death was notable because of its striking similarity to the 2020 death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed while he was pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of second-degree murder in that case, and the city agreed to a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family.
But while Floyd’s death led to months-long riots across the country, with protesters calling for police reform and accusing law enforcement of systemic anti-black racism, Timpa’s death received comparatively little national attention. In part, that was because the city held back body camera footage for three years, but also because Timpa’s death didn’t fit an activist-driven narrative about racist cops targeting and killing black men.
Like Floyd, Timpa was a large man who’d taken drugs before police held him face-down on the ground in what is known as the prone position. Like Floyd, Timpa cried out while he was pinned down — “You’re going to kill me,” he told officers. And, as in Floyd’s case, the officers did not attempt life-saving measures, even as Timpa appeared limp and lifeless.
Instead, they laughed at him and mocked him, talked to him like he was a child, and joked that it was time to wake up for school and to eat his “rooty-tooty-frooty waffles,” according to body camera footage of the incident and the lawsuit by Timpa’s family.
The Dallas officers encountered Timpa, after 10 p.m. on August 10, 2016. Timpa, who suffered from anxiety and schizophrenia, had called 911 from a pornography store and told a dispatcher he was off his medication and that he was afraid.
He ran through traffic and climbed on a bus, but by the time the police officers arrived, security guards had him handcuffed on the ground.
“You’re going to kill me,” Timpa told police. Dillard denied that was the case.
The officers rolled Timpa onto his stomach, and for more than 14 minutes Dillard remained on top of him, with his knee in Timpa’s back. Timpa gagged, groaned, and pleaded with the officers not to hurt or kill him. When he eventually went quiet and stopped moving, the officers mocked him, seemingly thinking he had passed out or fallen asleep.
“I don’t want to go to school, five more minutes, mom!” one of the officers said.
The jury was tasked with determining whether Dillard had violated Timpa’s constitutional rights and if the other officers on scene, Dominguez, Mansell, and Vasquez, failed to intervene. Lawyers for the city, who represented the officers, argued that the restraints they used that night were reasonable, and that the officers followed department protocols. The argued that Timpa’s death was related to his drug use and a heart condition.
While the officers denied responsibility for Timpa’s death during the trial, they acknowledged that their comments that night were not professional or appropriate.
“I don’t think my apology will ever be enough, but that’s all I have to offer,” Dominguez told Timpa’s family, according to a Dallas Morning News report.
“I just wanted to get him help that night,” Dillard said of Timpa, according to the paper.
The officers attempted to shift blame to paramedics at the scene who, they said, failed to raise concerns about Timpa’s medical condition. Dillard said the paramedics didn’t act with urgency when it became clear that something was wrong with Timpa, the Morning News reported.
“I did not hurt Mr. Timpa,” Dillard said. “I did not kill Mr. Timpa. I did nothing wrong.”
Much of the trial was focused on the medical science involving Timpa’s breathing, and his history of physical and mental-health troubles.
The Timpa family lawyers argued that Timpa was asphyxiated. At one point they presented jurors with 3D animation of a chest cavity overlayed on body-camera footage, the Morning News reported. Dr. Martin Tobin, a world-renowned pulmonologist who was a state witness in the Minnesota case against Chauvin, testified that Timpa had died from a lack of oxygen.
Geoff Henley, a lawyer for Timpa’s mother, told jurors the case was about a “broken promise associated with 911.” He urged them to award more than $300 million to Timpa’s family members, with “911” in their awards — $40,911,911 for each of Timpa’s parents, $120,911,911 for Timpa’s son, and $100,911,911 for Timpa’s estate, the Morning News reported
The defense countered that Timpa died from a cardiac arrest related to his heart condition and his admitted use of cocaine that night. Timpa, they said, lived a “secret life,” that included mental-health troubles and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, according to the paper.
The medical examiner ruled Timpa’s death a homicide, “the result of sudden cardiac death due to the toxic effects of cocaine and physiologic stress associated with physical restraint.”
Lindsay Gowin, a city lawyer representing the officers, told jurors that the evidence wasn’t there to find the officers responsible for Timpa’s death, according to the paper. And she told the jurors that if they deemed the officers responsible, the officers would be labeled “killers” for the rest of their lives.
The jurors began deliberating on Tuesday night.
It took lawyers for Timpa’s family members more than seven years to get the case in front of a jury. For three years, the city refused to release body-camera footage of Timpa’s death, and officials were not truthful with his family, claiming at one point that he’d had a heart attack at a bar. The city eventually released the footage after a three-year fight with the Morning News.
A grand jury indicted three of the Dallas officers on misdemeanor deadly conduct charges, but the district attorney dismissed them.
Henley initially filed the civil lawsuit in November 2016. U.S. District Judge David Godbey granted a defense motion for summary judgment in July 2020, writing that the officers were protected by the doctrine of qualified immunity, seemingly ending the civil case. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the case to proceed, and last year the U.S. Supreme Court declined to reverse the appeals-court decision, paving the way to trial.
The trial was slated to begin in July, but Godbey delayed it for two months, in part owing to concerns about the amount of media coverage the case was receiving.