Warning: This article contains graphic images
A man claims to have suffered third-degree burns after police officers pinned him to the scorching ground in a record heatwave.
Michael Kenyon, from Phoenix, Arizona, claims he was pushed, held and ‘cooked’ on the ground by police officers on July 6 last year, in the peak of a summer heat wave.
The 30-year-old said that when officers lifted him from the asphalt, his skin melted, peeled away and fell to the ground, causing third-degree burns on his face, arms, chest and legs and left him with no skin above his knees.
Kenyon’s attorney, Bobby DiCello, shared the shocking surveillance footage of the incident to CBS News, which showed him talking on his cellphone while walking a parking lot before Phoenix officers pull up in a truck.
Two officers approach Kenyon as he puts away his phone and they then attempt to handcuff him, which is when a struggle breaks out.
Two more cops are called for backup and the video appears to show the four officers pushing and holding Kenyon on the ground for more than four minutes in a move which DiCello said ‘defies all reason’.
The attorney told the news outlet: “They held a man – another human being – on a surface so hot that it caused his skin to bubble and boil.”
Kenyon’s injuries were immediately apparent once he was lifted from the asphalt as police called paramedics to attend to his burns.
Separate phone footage captured from a nearby balcony also shows Kenyon shouting out: “Please, please, I can’t move, I didn’t do anything”, KGUN reports.
DiCello said Kenyon then spent more than a month in hospital to recover from his injuries that have ‘disfigured’ and ‘scarred him for life’.
The lawyer also said officers kept Kenyon handcuffed from a hospital bed and have since filed a notice of claim for $15.53 million – or he will sue the city in federal court.
The claim accuses the police department of a lack of training and of unconstitutional practices and creating a violent culture, according to the Daily Mail.
The temperature that day was 114 degrees, with the asphalt estimated to scorch between 180 and 200 degrees.
The red-hot summer saw Phoenix endure 100 days back-to-back with at least 100 degree temperatures.
In a statement to CBS News, Phoenix police said they were responding to a call regarding a theft when they made contact with Kenyon.
“The man struggled with police, which resulted with him being taken to the ground on the hot asphalt,” the statement reads. “The man sustained burns to different parts of his body from the time he was on the ground.”
Kenyon later told ABC 15 that he believed officers stopped him in the parking lot because his roommate had reported a theft from their home across the street.
He alleged officers spoke to him in a ‘mean, hostile way’ and that he had tried to talk to them reasonably while sitting down on another person’s truck before he was taken to the ground.
“And I think that’s when like five people were on me… And I’m just screaming for help. And I’m thinking this is literally [how] George Floyd was literally like’, he continued, explaining how he thought it was ‘the end’ while the pain felt like ‘going through Hell and Hades’.
The force has since said the Professional Standards Bureau is investigating the incident.
UNILAD has approached Phoenix police for comment.
