A 47-year-old woman who was handcuffed and restrained by Dallas police and Dallas Fire-Rescue officials before she fell unresponsive in late May died from the combined toxic effects of cocaine, meth and PCP, the Dallas County medical examiner’s office said Tuesday.
LaDamonyon “DeeDee” Hall’s death was ruled an accident, the medical examiner’s office told The Dallas Morning News two months after her death. The written autopsy report wasn’t immediately available.
Dallas police officers responded May 26 to a call about a disturbance in the 12000 block of Garland Road in Far East Dallas. A 38-minute video released by police 13 days after Hall died showed that responding officers and Dallas Fire-Rescue officials pinned down Hall, handcuffed her and took her to the hospital with a spit hood over her head as she yelled and fought them.
Hall fell unresponsive just before arriving at the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Attorney Justin Moore, who is advising Hall’s family, said in a text message Tuesday that the family was having an independent autopsy conducted.
“We have no faith in the autopsy report coming from law enforcement,” Moore said. “Her family is exhausted but still hopeful that they can get Justice for DeeDee.”
Dallas police declined to comment on the medical examiner’s ruling. Dallas Fire-Rescue did not immediately provide a statement.
Hall’s family has previously said her treatment by first responders who handcuffed her, used a spit hood and briefly kneeled on her was inhumane and discriminatory. Hall was a Black transgender woman who suffered from bipolar schizophrenia and appeared to be experiencing a mental-health episode, her family said.
The video captured authorities repeatedly calling Hall “sir,” “he” or “him,” which Moore and family members have said raises questions about whether Hall endured anti-LGBTQ discrimination and whether first responders delayed medical care.
After she was strapped to a stretcher and placed in an ambulance, Hall is seen in body-worn camera footage yelling “I’m dying, I’m dying, [expletive] it.”
“You got a few minutes, calm down before we get to the hospital so they don’t have to tie you back up like that,” an officer says.
“Try to breathe, OK?” he says a moment later, and Hall yells out more. She falls silent about 30 minutes into the footage as the officer speaks with a paramedic and says he’s not sure what’s going on.
After Hall’s death, two paramedics seen in the footage had their credentials temporarily suspended pending an investigation. Dallas Fire-Rescue never released their names, and it was unclear Tuesday whether their credentials were still suspended.
The police officers involved — identified by police as Alan Hovis, Benjamin Lambourne, Jon Leach and Brandon Pryor — have remained on active duty since Hall’s death.
Following Hall’s death, police oversight officials expressed concerns about the police department’s 13-day delay in releasing body-worn camera footage. The department’s general order is for such a video to be released within 72 hours of the incident, but Chief Eddie García has the discretion to withhold the release of any video related to a critical police-involved incident.
Tonya McClary, head of the Office of Community Police Oversight, said in June she had to remind police that the spirit of the rule is transparency. She said police argued the video didn’t show officer wrongdoing so they wanted to wait to release footage until further investigation.
The department has said the delay in this case was so the family could review the video.
The police oversight board also said it intends to look into police policies on the use of spit hoods, which are mesh hoods meant to keep someone from biting or spitting. They’re not used by many police departments across the country, but they’re widely used by corrections officers in prisons and jails, The New York Times reported in 2020.
