Crime Video shows Phoenix police burning man during arrest: ‘Like acid on my skin’

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Revealed: officers appear to hold Michael Kenyon, 30, to hot pavement in July, causing third-degree burns
Sam Levin in Los Angeles

On 6 July 2024, a day when temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona, reached 114F (45.5C), Michael Kenyon was walking to his local store to buy a soda when two officers of the city’s police department stopped him.

They hastily told him he was being detained, Kenyon recalls, without clearly stating why. Two more officers arrived.

Surveillance footage from across the parking lot, which was viewed by the Guardian, shows the 30-year-old on the pavement soon after, with several officers on top of him and holding him down. Once they lift Kenyon off the ground after roughly four minutes, he appears limp.

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Michael Kenyon in Phoenix, Arizona, on 26 October. Photograph: Courtesy of Steve Benedetto
Kenyon had been burned – severely burned – on the hot city pavement. Medical records indicate he suffered third-degree burns, and hospital photos show deep burn scars and skin peeled off across his body. Kenyon has not been charged with a crime and a police spokesperson confirmed he was not the suspect that officers were seeking as part of a theft investigation.

“It felt like acid burning my skin,” Kenyon told the Guardian. “I thought of George Floyd, and I didn’t understand why people wouldn’t help me as I was screaming in pain … like I was dying.”

It’s not the first time residents in the city have accused police of burning them on the pavement. In 2019, Phoenix police department officers held Roniah Trotter, then 18, on hot pavement on a 113F day, leaving her with second-degree burns. Earlier that year, a 28-year-old man died in police custody after officers held him down on hot asphalt for several minutes.

To Steve Benedetto, a civil rights lawyer representing Kenyon, the case illustrates that the Phoenix police department has systemic problems requiring outside intervention.

In June, the US Department of Justice accused the police department of routinely discriminating against people of color and killing civilians without justification, proposing that the force be subjected to independent monitoring. The department has pushed back, asserting that it is a “self-correcting agency” that doesn’t need oversight. Earlier this month, however, the department again faced scrutiny after footage showed two white officers repeatedly punching and deploying a stun gun on Tyron McAlpin, a 34-year-old deaf Black man with cerebral palsy.
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Michael Kenyon suffered third-degree burns after an encounter with Phoenix police officers. ‘[Now] every time I see cops, I think, is he after me?’
Photograph: Courtesy of Steve Benedetto


On the day of Kenyon’s arrest, Phoenix was under an excessive heat warning, an increasingly frequent occurrence in the US south. Kenyon was wearing shorts and a tank top and talking on the phone when police approached, the footage shot from across the parking lot shows.

There’s no audio, but the video shows two officers initially holding Kenyon’s arms and having him sit on the back of a parked truck.

The footage shows two additional officers arriving, and Kenyon landing on the pavement with several officers holding him down.

Grainy cellphone footage taken by a witness from above appears to capture him screaming and pleading for help, at one point appearing to say: “Please … I didn’t do anything.”
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Once the officers get Kenyon off the ground, footage shows him limping and stumbling as they bring him to a police vehicle. Kenyon said one officer eventually poured water on his burns as they waited for paramedics to arrive. He said he couldn’t remember being transported to the hospital and may have lost consciousness, but recalled waking up in the hospital handcuffed to a bed.

Graphic photos from the hospital, where he stayed for weeks, show layers of skin burned off his arms, legs, chest and side of his face.

Police haven’t released body-camera footage. A police spokesperson, Rob Scherer, said in a statement that officers were investigating a “theft in progress” and that Kenyon “matched the suspect description”.
“Officers made contact with Kenyon, telling him he was being detained so they could understand what may have occurred. The man struggled with police, which [resulted] with him being taken to the ground on the hot asphalt. The man sustained burns to different parts of his body from the time he was on the ground,” Scherer said. “Kenyon was determined not to be the suspect of the theft.”

He said the incident was subject to an “ongoing criminal investigation” and an investigation by the “professional standards bureau”, which investigates misconduct.

Kenyon said he believes one of his roommates may have called the police on another roommate over a potential theft.

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Cellphone video of one of Kenyon’s roommates in the aftermath of the incident captures her frantically calling 911 to report what had happened. “They just unlawfully detained [him] … the boy you guys just burned,” she appears to tell an operator.

After she got off the call, the video captures her explaining to police on the scene that she had been on the phone with Kenyon during the arrest and heard him scream. She sobbed and begged officers to help him: “Treat him now! Treat him, treat him!” And she told one officer: “His whole body has third-degree burns on it. [They] wouldn’t let him up … I watched him get burned … If someone did this to your son, how would that feel?”

Dr Cecilia Sorensen, director of Columbia’s global consortium on climate and health education, said when air temperatures climb above 100F, the pavement can sometimes be 40 to 60 degrees hotter: “If you have direct contact with that surface, you’re going to start getting damage to your skin.”

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Michael Kenyon recalls waking up in the hospital, handcuffed to a bad, after his arrest in July 2024.
Photograph: Courtesy of Michael Kenyon’s lawyers

Pavement burns can happen within seconds, added Dr Rabia Nizamani, surgeon at the University medical center’s Lions Burn Care Center in Las Vegas: “It takes a few minutes … to get a third-degree burn that keeps you in the hospital for weeks.” Bony body parts, such as knees, are particularly vulnerable, and wounds can take months to heal, with scars that can affect a patient’s functioning for years and require additional procedures, she said.

Kenyon said he had worked in construction, door-to-door sales and other jobs that he fears he can’t do any more: “I probably will never go back to having an outside job where I have to work in the sun.”

For now, he’s been unable to work and said a roommate had been helping with bills.

“I’m speaking out because I don’t want this to happen to other people,” he added. “I want to be the last one.” He said he didn’t blame the individual officers. “Whoever trained these guys are really responsible. These guys all acted the same, so somebody drilled it into them.”
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Benedetto, the lawyer, said: “A guy was walking to the store to get a soda and then minutes later he’s wondering if he’s going to die, and that’s really endemic of where this department is at. This is a department that presumably should be on its best behavior with the DoJ looming … This is the impact of their policies, procedures and training that we’ve seen over and over. There’s never any real accountability.”

Kenyon said he had struggled to process what happened.

“I don’t really want to look at my body any more,” he said, noting it was too painful to see photos from the hospital. “Every time I see myself, I have flashbacks. And every time I see cops, I think, is he after me? And I know in my head it’s not true, but it just comes up.” He said he questions whether he could’ve done something differently. “I have to keep telling myself … I didn’t deserve this.”

He added: “I just want the Department of Justice to take care of them and fix what they say they’re going to fix … I’m not trying to get attention, I just want my story to be heard because I hurt.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/29/phoenix-police-michael-kenyon-burn-video

- WTF is wrong with those retards?

Dr Cecilia Sorensen, director of Columbia’s global consortium on climate and health education, said when air temperatures climb above 100F, the pavement can sometimes be 40 to 60 degrees hotter: “If you have direct contact with that surface, you’re going to start getting damage to your skin.”
- Even the dumbest creature on Earth knows this. Or they wond't pass a test to become a cop!
 
It's not ok to hold someone down on hot asphalt, but at the same time, it's yet another case where the entire thing could've been avoided if you didn't resist.
He wasn't charged with anything. They were looking for someone else. Obviously you shouldn't start fighting with the cops if they want to arrest you but you have the right for the police to state the charges against you before they try to detain and identify you.
 
It's not ok to hold someone down on hot asphalt, but at the same time, it's yet another case where the entire thing could've been avoided if you didn't resist.
Yes exactly you should never resist, just pick up the can like a good citizen and don't question authority.
 
Racist cops at it again !!

But that’s common sense in AZ. People don’t walk their dogs when it’s that hot cuz the pavement burns their feet . Suspensions and big lawsuit coming
 
Yes exactly you should never resist, just pick up the can like a good citizen and don't question authority.

Yea because resisting always helps “well he’s fighting back because we’re wrong , I guess we’ll just let him go “
said no cop ever .
 
Racist cops at it again !!

But that’s common sense in AZ. People don’t walk their dogs when it’s that hot cuz the pavement burns their feet . Suspensions and big lawsuit coming

All paid out by the tax payers. Shit like this where there's a total lack of safety and violation of rights should come out of their pension if a victim is getting paid out in a civil case. Also, pump the brakes on qualified immunity to keep cops a little more honest.
 
Yes exactly you should never resist, just pick up the can like a good citizen and don't question authority.

other than getting some speed holes blasted through your chest what good can come from resisting arrest ?
 
Yea because resisting always helps “well he’s fighting back because we’re wrong , I guess we’ll just let him go “
said no cop ever .
other than getting some speed holes blasted through your chest what good can come from resisting arrest ?
I would prefer if we held police accountable when they act with malice and/or reckless negligence as in this case rather than chastising the innocent man who was maimed by agents of the state.
 
Yes exactly you should never resist, just pick up the can like a good citizen and don't question authority.

Oh, yeah! Fight the machine! He certainly showed them. Turning an unpleasant situation into a complete shit show is always the way to go.

smh

I would prefer if we held police accountable when they act with malice and/or reckless negligence as in this case rather than chastising the innocent man who was maimed by agents of the state.
We can hold the cops accountable and still point out the innocent man is a moron.
 
Oh, yeah! Fight the machine! He certainly showed them. Turning an unpleasant situation into a complete shit show is always the way to go.

smh


We can hold the cops accountable and still point out the innocent man is a moron.
I think its in very poor taste to criticize the man who was victimized here when he was just an innocent man going about his day. Blaming him because he resisted instead of the negligent police strikes me as completely misplaced priorities and misguided thinking. I don't expect citizens to act rationally when being confronted by police in this manner but I do expect the cops to behave professionally and part of that involves not allowing an innocent man to suffer third degree burns across his body because of your negligence.

Oh and you would definitely pick up the can with no hesitation.
 
Blaming him because he resisted instead of the negligent police
I didn't do that. The cops being wrong doesn't change the fact the man is a moron.

Why would you risk your life to fight with cops? What would be the end game? Please tell me.

Oh and you would definitely pick up the can with no hesitation.
Oh. You're such a rebel.

I pick my fights. I was put in handcuffs once. We were rehearsing a scene for a short film and someone called the police on my friends and I because we had a gun (it was fake). Nobody resisted. I waited to be in handcuffs to make sure nothing bad would happen (the cops had their weapons drawn on us) then I spoke my peace.
 
I didn't do that. The cops being wrong doesn't change the fact the man is a moron.

Why would you risk your life to fight with cops? What would be the end game? Please tell me.
What makes him a moron? You don't see how being detained by cops out of the blue might be stressful for someone? Maybe the cops should not have held him down on scalding asphalt?
Oh. You're such a rebel.


I pick my fights. I was put in handcuffs once. We were rehearsing a scene for a short film and someone called the police on my friends and I because we had a gun (it was fake). Nobody resisted. I waited to be in handcuffs to make sure nothing bad would happen (the cops had their weapons drawn on us) then I spoke my peace.
Okay that's great, I'm glad you weren't hurt. But this department has a history of violence against the citizenry and they seem to have acted very negligently here. They swarm this guy out of the blue and detain him without even telling him why.
 
I would prefer if we held police accountable when they act with malice and/or reckless negligence as in this case rather than chastising the innocent man who was maimed by agents of the state.
cops should absolutely be held accountable when the fuck up. Trying to be the one to hold them accountable while you are being arrested is like sticking your dick in a beehive. Nothing good can come from it for anyone involved.

If the cops do fuck up and you act a fool, you just screwed yourself out of any possible lawsuit.

"This asshole just pulled me over for no reason, I better show him what's what by giving him a reason"
 
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