Timpa v. Dillard

Instead of being helping Tony Timpa after he called the 911 due to a mental health crisis, responding officers from the Dallas Police Department (DPD) applied bodily force to his chest until he asphyxiated and suffocated him to death. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure police departments, like DPD, are answerable for their systemic failures to protect and serve the communities they swore an oath to instead of shielding officers from culpability with the qualified immunity doctrine.   

When he called 911, Mr. Timpa told the dispatcher that he was “having a lot of anxiety” and suffered from a history of mental illness.  Several officers trained in “Crisis Intervention” arrived on scene but Mr. Timpa was already subdued by local security guards. One of the DPD officers replaced the security guards’ handcuffs with their own without incident. 

Against crisis intervention training and DPD policy, officers flipped Mr. Timpa onto his stomach – known as the prone position – while still restraining him and kneeled on his neck for over 14 minutes while Mr. Timpa pleaded for help 15 times. He eventually went limp but despite being on the scene before his death, paramedics were instructed by officers not to treat Mr. Timpa until it was too late.   

When officers realized Mr. Timpa was no longer breathing, they could be heard joking on their body camera, with one saying, “I hope I didn’t kill him,” while others laughed and responded, “What’s this ‘we’ you are talking about? We ain’t friends.”  

With suspects across the country having died of positional asphyxia, police departments have known for decades that arrestees should not be restrained prone position for long periods of time.  It was an especially galling decision to place Mr. Timpa in that position despite him posing no threat to anyone but himself. 

Despite the clear violation of the Dallas Police Department’s code of conduct, the district court granted the officers involved qualified immunity, preventing the Timpa family from holding them accountable in civil court.  

The MacArthur Justice Center (MJC), alongside Henley & Henley and Hutchison & Stoy, represents Mr. Timpa’s family in their appeal to the Fifth Circuit.  

UPDATE  

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision and concluded that the officer who killed Mr. Timpa, as well as three officers who stood by while it happened, must face a jury trial.  

The Fifth Circuit denied the City of Dallas’ petition for rehearing en banc.

The U.S. Supreme Court then denied the City of Dallas’ petition for writ of certiorari.