The man who died after a confrontation with Baltimore County Police early Sunday morning resisted officers’ attempt to restrain him in a “violent” way for about five minutes, according to a police report.
Police said Tawon Boyd, 21, became subdued almost immediately after receiving a drug, which police redacted in the report.
After receiving the substance, he became so calm that the officer asked a medic to check Boyd for a pulse.
He was still breathing then, but died in the hospital this week, police said.
Boyd's fiancée, Deona Styron, told ABC2 News Boyd was intoxicated and acting erratic, a scene that spilled out into the street as police arrived after Boyd called them.
"He is banging on neighbor's doors at 3 in the morning,” Baltimore County Police Spokesperson Elise Armacost said, “He is trying to break into the police cruisers. He is talking about calling for the police when the police are there. It becomes clear to the officers that he needs help."
According to the police report, released late yesterday, officers tried to calm and restrain Boyd.
Boyd struck police, and police say officers struck back in order to bring him under control
According to the report, “the violent resisting” lasted about five minutes.
It was a scene that brought Boyd's grandmother out of her house to see her grandson struggling with the officers
"I went over there where he was at and he was on the ground hollering,” Boyd’s grandmother Linda Burch said, “He said ‘Grandma, grandma...they gonna kill me, they gonna kill me.’ They was all on his shoulder and back...holding him down."
In the struggle, three officers were injured, and a medic called for Boyd.
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According to the police report, medics decided to administer a medication to calm him down.
The name of it is redacted from the report, but according to the Maryland Medical Protocols for EMS Providers, a guideline for the state, a drug called haloperidol is used specifically as a “chemical restraint for violent, agitated and aggressive patients.”
Styron remembers him getting a shot that night, and then being loaded in the ambulance totally limp.
He was taken to Franklin Square Hospital, where family members took a picture of his injuries.
Boyd died two days later, shortly before noon Wednesday.
While Baltimore County Police say a cause of death is still not known, Boyd's family feels police are to blame.
"I think they killed him. That is like murder. There is too many of them and they are too big. He couldn't breathe because they had his face down in the dirt. He said he couldn't breathe and they kept holding them down," Burch said.
There are three separate investigations currently underway.
Both the Baltimore County Police and fire departments are doing internal reviews, as is the police department’s homicide unit.
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