Harrowing bodycam video captures hogtied black inmate yelling ‘I can’t breathe’ 20 TIMES as five prison guards and a nurse held him down – before he was finally sent to hospital where he later died

John Nivelle dies of cardiac arrest after the incident

Harrowing footage has been released showing a North Carolina jail inmate who died after being hogtied face down as he yelled, ‘I can’t breathe,’ more than 20 times.

John Neville, 56, died of a brain injury sustained during cardiac arrest which the coroner ruled was caused by ‘asphyxia during prone restraint.’

Neville had fallen off his top bunk at Forsyth County jail in Winston-Salem in the early hours of December 2, following his arrest on a warrant accusing him of assaulting a woman.

He was first chained up in his cell, struggling with four or five officers as they told him he was having a seizure, before being taken to another cell where he was placed face down on a mattress for 12 minutes, pleading to be turned over throughout. 

[amazon box=”B07SDFC9QT” “small”]

‘I can’t breathe,’ was called out 25 times during the 45 minute ordeal.

At one point an officer tells him: ‘You’re talking, you can breathe.’

Five of the jail officers and a nurse were charged in July with involuntary manslaughter, sparking a wave of protests and a week-long occupation of Bailey Park, not far from the jail.

At one point a spit guard was placed over Neville’s face as officers transferred him to another cell

A pair of pliers had to be used to get the cuffs off Neville after a key broke off inside. At one point, a guard acknowledged that the handcuffs belonged to him. ‘That’s coming out of your paycheck,’ another guard responds.

A vigil was last night held in that park at which activists gave speeches following the release of the footage by a judge on Wednesday.

On December 2, Neville had fallen from his top bunk where he’d been asleep.

His cellmate told investigators he woke to a loud bang. Neville was shaking on the ground so he pressed the emergency button.

[amazon box=”B07SDFC9QT” “small”]

Officers arrived to the cell at 3.26am and found the father-of-five sweating profusely, with vomit on his clothes and blood around his mouth.

Neville was roused by a nurse and was ‘incoherent, seemed confused, uncooperative, and became aggressive—he tried to sit up, kick, and swing his arms,’ the autopsy report said.

The body camera footage begins with a nurse kneeling beside Neville, telling him, ‘Your’e OK,’ and asking if he can talk to her.  

‘Are you ready to come out of it now?’ she asks. ‘It looks like you had a seizure.’

A guard explains that he is having a medical problem and tells him to calm down.

He fights to get up and yells expletives, crying ‘Let me up, let me up. … Help me. Help me.’ At one point, he yells, ‘Mama, mama!’

A group of four of five guards flips him over to his stomach and cuffs his hands behind his back as he continues to struggle. They put a white mesh hood over his head, stand him up, walk him through a door and strap him into a restraining chair as he moans and breathes heavily.

A guard then pushes him in the chair down several corridors before the roughly 19-minute body camera video ends.

In the second video, which is nearly 26 minutes long, Neville is moved into a small cell.

As he is being transferred, Neville yells, ‘Help me, somebody!’ A guard tells him he’s had a medical episode and he needs to calm down.

Lt. Lavette Maria Williams, 47, and Officer Antonio Maurice Woodley Jr., 26

Cpl. Edward Joseph Roussel, 50, and Officer Christopher Bryan Stamper, 42

Officer Sarah Elizabeth Poole, 36, and nurse Michelle Heughins, 44

Once in the cell, the five officers remove Neville from the chair and lay him on a mattress.

He yells, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and ‘Please let me go,’ and remained on the mattress for 12 minutes.

He shouted that he couldn’t breathe at least 25 more times before one guard uses bolt cutters to remove the handcuffs that a key had broken off in.

Neville had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman

At one point, a guard acknowledges that the handcuffs belong to him. ‘That’s coming out of your paycheck,’ another guard responds.

Soon, Neville stops yelling, and while officers ask him if he’s OK, no response can be heard on the video.

After that, his legs are folded onto his back and he is locked in the room. The officers back out.

The last scene shows the nurse standing at the window and looking at Neville. In a faint voice, the nurse appears to suggest that Neville wasn’t breathing.

The guards re-enter the cell and the nurse checks on Neville, who lets out an groan. 

The nurse applies her stethoscope, then tells the guards ‘I can’t hear a heart rate’ and says Neville has to be rolled on his back to be treated. She requests an defibrillator and performs CPR on him.

Neville died of a brain injury due to cardiopulmonary arrest which was caused by ‘positional and compressional asphyxia during prone restraint,’ the autopsy report said.

It also noted that Neville had other ‘significant conditions,’ including ‘acute altered mental status’ and asthma.

The father-of-five died two days later from injuries sustained during the 45 minute ordeal

A vigil was last night held in the Bailey Park, not far from the jail, at which activists gave speeches following the release of the footage

Mike Grace, an attorney for the Neville family, said the video evoked tears.

‘I didn´t know Mr. Neville before his death, and I wept,’ Grace said. ‘My partner didn´t know him, and my partner is a 45-year-old white man and he wept. I wept like a baby.’

Grace said there have been others who didn´t see a problem with the way Neville was treated, but he said it´s that kind of insensitivity that led to his death.

‘It was a very definite lack of respect for human dignity, for human life, especially a black human life in jail,’ he said.

Grace described Neville´s death as one of commission, not of omission.

‘The video won´t show anyone kicking Mr. Neville or hitting Mr. Neville or actively attacking him,’ he said. ‘They just didn´t give a damn about him, and I don´t know which is worse. It was a life, according to the coroner, that he shouldn’t have died. Didn’t have to die.’

In this Feb. 12, 2019 image made from video and released by the Forsyth County, (N.C). Jail, authorities restrain John Neville in his cell as a nurse speaks with him, in Winston-Salem, N.C. The body-cam video from the jail shows Neville struggling with jail guards to get up from the floor where he was lying on his back, shouting that he couldn’t breathe and calling out ‘Mama, mama!’ before he was hog-tied to restrain him. Neville died at a local hospital of a brain injury on Dec. 4, 2019. (Forsyth County Jail via AP)

On Tuesday, Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough apologized to Neville’s family during a news conference for the man’s death. 

‘And I cried as well,’ Kimbrough said, directing the comment to Sean Neville, John Neville’s son, who was seated in front of the sheriff.

‘While mistakes were made that day, the truth is the truth,’ the sheriff said. 

Kimbrough also said the sheriff’s office has undergone administrative changes as a result of Neville’s death, including what Kimbrough described as ‘integrative training’ with the department which involves medical providers.

‘Your father has changed the way health care will be dispensed at the Forsyth County Detention Center as well as how it will be dispensed throughout this region,’ the sheriff said, adding that a portion of the jail will be named for Neville, pending permission from the family to do so.