Horror: Teen Suffocates in Car as Bodycam Shows Officers Hardly Looked for Him
Two police officers responding to a call stayed in their car while a teenage boy suffocated to death in the parking lot they were driving through, new body cam footage shows.
The teenager Kyle Plush, 16, had called 911 twice as he was suffocating to death after he got stuck beneath the bench seat in the back of his minivan, the New York Post reported.
The body cam footage released Friday shows Cincinnati, Ohio, officers Edsel Osborne and Brian Brazile driving around a school parking lot, searching for Plush, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Officials originally said the cops looked for Plush for 11 minutes, but the footage only shows nearly three minutes of their search.
The officers also reportedly did not check the school’s entire parking lot.
The footage shows the officers did not get out of their car, even though Plush had called 911 twice and told dispatch he was in “desperate need of help.”
Plush also made it clear to the 911 operator that he was about to die and that he was not joking.
“This is not a joke,” Plush told the operator.
“I’m almost dead. Tell my mom I love her if I die.”
In the video one of the officers said, while inside of the car, that he did not see anybody and that he wasn’t expecting to.
“I don’t see nobody, which I didn’t imagine I would,” the officer said.
The Ohio 911 operator, Amber Smith, was suspended from her job after she failed to give officers important information about Plush’s location, WCPO reported.
Smith reportedly failed to tell officers the make, model or color of his minivan located in the school’s parking lot.
Plush’s body was found nearly six hours later.
Officials said he died of asphyxia, as his chest was stuck under the seat.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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