It was a night Tara Earl said she will never forget: the night her brother Rhyker died with his hands cuffed behind his back at her grandparents’ house in Demotte, Indiana.
“I just keep hearing in my head his screams for help that night; he was saying he couldn’t breathe; he was saying get off me,” she recounted hearing over the phone as Jasper County, Indiana, sheriff’s deputies responded.
The 26-year-old father of two had suffered a seizure and Connie Widner said she called 911 for help.
“I couldn’t save him that night. I called 911 thinking that they were going to come and help him,” his grandmother said. Instead, they witnessed a situation spin out of their control.
“When I showed up, his hands were handcuffed behind his back,” grandfather Chuck Widner said. “There were two people on his upper body, a police officer on his legs,” he said.
On Monday, the Earl family met in Chicago with national civil rights attorney Ben Crump. They are demanding justice and to see the bodycam video law enforcement recorded that night.
“He was having a medical crisis, and Rhyker should not be dead today,” Crump said.
In a statement released on Facebook, Jasper County Sheriff Pat Williamson said, “Deputies placed Mr. Earl in handcuffs for his safety and that of the medical providers.”
“Mr. Earl was in an excited state and did not respond to pleas from deputies or his family to remain calm. Sadly, Mr. Earl ultimately became unresponsive, was taken to the hospital, and later passed away,” Williamson posted.
Williamson said that on the bodycam video, Earl could be seen “forcefully banging his head on the floor.”
That’s why he said “deputies immediately asked the family for a pillow and placed it under his head to prevent Earl from injuring himself.
The sheriff’s office said Earl’s breathing was not restricted by the pillow.
His family said releasing the video is crucial to their understanding of how the 26-year-old died.
“This should not have happened. They were called for a medical purpose, and we lost him. It should not have happened,” said Miracle Gawlinski, Rhyker Earl’s aunt.
Indiana state police are conducting an independent investigation into the sheriff’s response that night in Demotte. Sheriff Williamson has vowed to release the bodycam video from his officers when he is cleared to do by investigators.