RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Three Virginia police officers will not be charged with federal criminal civil rights crimes for repeatedly using a stun gun on a black man who died soon after he was taken into custody, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Investigators found insufficient evidence to prove that the officers violated federal law by willfully using unreasonable force on Linwood Lambert Jr. in May 2013, U.S. Attorney John Fishwick Jr. said in a statement.
The announcement comes as people protest the treatment of blacks by police in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Police in those cities are facing backlash after officers fatally shot black men.
Police car dash and hospital surveillance videos released last year show South Boston Police Officers Tiffany Bratton, Clifton Mann and Travis Clay using their stun guns repeatedly on Lambert after they took him into custody for a mental health evaluation on May 4, 2013. South Boston, a community of roughly 8,000, is in southern Virginia near the North Carolina border.
When they arrived at the hospital, Lambert kicked out the police cruiser’s window and ran toward the emergency room doors with his hands cuffed behind his back, the videos shows. As he ran away from the officers, they shocked him repeatedly, even after he fell to the ground.