‘Was Literally Crying for Help’: Alabama Cops Caught Dragging Black Man’s Limp Body to Patrol Car Who Was Then Pronounced Dead
Witnesses believe Ammarin Tunstall died after Alabama cops chased him on Monday into a wooded area where they repeatedly tasered and pepper-sprayed him while the 35-year-old Black man screamed and pleaded for help until he went silent.
Witness video shows Monroeville police officers dragging Tunstall’s limp body from the wooded area to a patrol car as one officer tells him to “act like a grown‑ass man.”
He was then transported to the Monroe County Detention Center, where police say they administered Narcan, a life-saving nasal spray used on people who have overdosed on opiates. Police say they then transported Tunstall to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
But it took three days before Monroeville police addressed the issue publicly, posting on their Facebook page that they had received a call “in reference to a domestic situation,” adding that he also had an “outstanding warrant” for his arrest.
They say they spotted him walking and then he fled into a wooded area, but was eventually “taken into custody without incident” — not acknowledging the allegations that they had pepper-sprayed and tasered him.
The press release posted Thursday afternoon also says they were dragging him because he was refusing to walk.
Mr. Tunstall was talking with officers and alert, but refused to walk, this was not uncommon behavior for Mr. Tunstall. While being escorted to the patrol vehicle Mr. Tunstall did walk on his own for a distance but then stopped again. Mr. Tunstall spoke with officers as he was being placed in the vehicle to be transported to the Detention Facility. Upon arrival Mr. Tunstall became unresponsive, officers immediately began giving Mr. Tunstall medical aid and called for EMS.
But they have not said whether the arrest was captured on bodycams or dashcams.
Tunstall’s cousin, Selena Thomas, said she witnessed officers dragging him from the wooded area and tried to help him.
“He was on his knees, and I asked officers if I could speak with him; they told me no,” Thomas told local media.
“I asked if I could give him my number, and they told me no. I called his name, and he didn’t respond. They threw him in the back of the police car face down.”
The incident is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, which posted a vague press release saying Tunstall’s body was released to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, which will conduct an autopsy.
The state law enforcement agency said it would forward its findings to the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office once it has completed its investigation, which can take several months, as we’ve seen so many times in the past with other law enforcement agencies investigating fellow cops.
A witness who recorded the video told local media she saw the cops chasing him into the woods, where she then heard him cry out for help.
“I heard him yelling in the bushes,” said the witness who remained anonymous.
“He was yelling and screaming. He was literally crying for help.”
Watch the video below.
‘This is a Cover Up!’
The incident took place on March 30 after police chased him into the woods at around 2:30 p.m., but no video has surfaced yet of the initial chase.
The videos show two cops dragging him from the woods to his car, being led by a third officer. And local media reports state that medical crews were dispatched to the county jail at 3:03 p.m. because Tunstall was reportedly “unresponsive with a weak pulse.”
By 3:35 p.m., the Alabama Law Enforcement’s investigative bureau had been notified and launched its investigation, issuing its press release on Facebook the following day, prompting more than 200 comments from people accusing police of a cover-up.
“He was unresponsive when they dragged his body from his house and put him into the police vehicle,” said one commenter. “His body was lifeless way before he got to the detention center.”
“From looking at the video, he was already dead before he was put into the vehicle by police,” the commenter continued.
“They should have called medical personnel before they dragged his lifeless body to the police vehicle. This is a cover up!”
And many other commenters shared her sentiment.
“Y’all left out the part that he was NOT IMMEDIATELY taken to a hospital,” said another commenter.
“HE WAS TAKEN TO THE JAIL, where EMS was called to an unconscious person!! DENIED PROPER MEDICAL CARE!!”
Most of the commenters questioned why the police didn’t treat him with Narcan at the scene or why they didn’t call for the medical crew, rather than stuff him into a car and drive him to jail.
“The Monroeville City Police Department should be investigated by the highest powers or authorities possible; anything less than that is just another day, another cover-up, another day of injustice, another day of living under corruption, for Monroeville City residents,” added a third commenter.
Monroeville is a majority-Black city in southern Alabama with a population of less than 6,000 people, according to the U.S. Census.
It was the setting for Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, about a white attorney defending a Black man falsely accused of rape, which won a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into an award-winning movie.
In 1988, a Black man named Walter McMillian was falsely convicted of murdering a white woman in a case investigated by Monroe County Sheriff Thomas Tate.
McMillian was exonerated and released from prison in 1993, but Tate remained sheriff for 30 years until he retired in 2018 following a scandal where he was exposed for pocketing more than $100,000 in tax dollars that were meant to feed inmates at the Monroe County Detention Center.
Tate was replaced by the current sheriff, Tom Boatwright, who has not commented much on the Tunstall case other than it’s being investigated by the state.
“Justice will be served,” said Tunstall’s sister, Gabbi Tunstall, on her Facebook page Tuesday.:
“My brother was already dead, he didn’t get in the truck hisself. Y’all tazed him and pepper sprayed then blamed it on narcotics, telling (him to) act like a grown ass man.”