Tennessee Cops Watched Man Drown for 13 Minutes: Lawsuit
The suit alleges that the officers even warned bystanders not to help the man.
@Knoxville_PD/Twitter
The mother of a man who drowned in Knoxville is suing the city, its police chief, and four officers, alleging that they watched her son drown for 13 minutes and did nothing to save him. Last July, after a brief police chase on foot, Mika Wheeler Clabo ended up in the water and was gasping for breath in the Tennessee River as four police officers allegedly watched him struggle but failed to intervene—despite pleas from onlookers to do so. The suit alleges that the officers even warned bystanders not to help the man, even as he eventually drowned in the river. According to the suit, the cops “acted with no urgency whatsoever throughout the incident to respond to the life-or-death situation.” Kimberly Williams-Clabo is accusing the defendants of violating her son’s civil rights in a case of wrongful death.
KPD, @KnoxvilleFire & @knoxrescuesquad personnel are actively searching for a man who went into the river near Calhoun’s & has not resurfaced. Several calls were received just before 10 a.m. b/c the man was acting erratically. He went into the river shortly after officers arrived pic.twitter.com/D4uoAaDcSO
— Knoxville Police TN (@Knoxville_PD) July 25, 2022
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