*CLICK TO READ THE MARSHALL PROJECT’S ARTICLE ABOUT THIS CASE
No one should die gasping for air while restrained in a medical facility. ESOP calls for accountability, transparency, and reforms to end empathy gaps and racial disparities that cost lives.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
The Ethical Society of Police (ESOP) is outraged by the death of Tasha Grant, a 39-year-old Black woman and double-amputee, who died after being restrained while in custody at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland on May 5, 2025.
According to body-camera footage and county records reported by The Marshall Project, Ms. Grant told hospital staff, hospital police, and a sheriff’s deputy 23 times that she could not breathe before becoming motionless while handcuffed to a hospital bed. Her death was later ruled a homicide caused by restraint.
A sedative was administered while she was pinned; experts have noted failures to monitor her vital signs afterward. A 14-minute gap before she was found unresponsive remains unexplained, and questions persist about missing pre-buffer body-camera footage. A special prosecutor has been appointed to consider charges.
“It is egregious for any human being to die this way – inside a hospital, while repeatedly saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’ The actions and omissions of all involved – hospital personnel, hospital police, and sheriff’s deputies – reflect a profound breakdown of care, compassion, and duty,” said ESOP leadership. “A hospital must be a place of healing, not a place where cries for air are dismissed.”
ESOP is compelled to name what communities have long experienced: a persistent lack of empathy gap toward Black patients and Black people in custody that too often delays treatment, minimizes symptoms and escalates force.
The CDC has recognized racism as a serious public-health threat and documented persistent racial inequities across health outcomes. Bias in clinical assessment—such as underestimating pain or discounting distress—has been empirically linked to worse care for Black patients. These inequities are not abstract; they are preventable, and they are deadly.
When a person in custody is transferred to a hospital bed, the mission must shift from control to care. Ethical policing requires that officers and hospital police defer to clinical judgment, avoid tactics that jeopardize breathing, and treat every statement of respiratory distress as a medical emergency—not a sign of defiance. Dismissing a patient’s pleas with versions of “if you can talk, you can breathe” is medically false, ethically indefensible, and corrosive to community trust.
ESOP’s Immediate Calls to Action
- Full public accounting: Release all relevant body-camera and hospital surveillance footage—including pre-buffer segments—along with timelines and monitoring records.
- Independent investigation: Ensure the special prosecutor’s review includes outside medical and use-of-force experts; publicly release findings.
- Clinical-first custody protocols: Require that once a patient is in a clinical setting, medical personnel lead all decisions affecting patient safety, with officers supporting—not directing—care.
- Prohibit high-risk restraint: Ban restraint positions and tactics known to compromise breathing; require continuous monitoring after any sedative administration.
- Mandatory training and audits: Implement joint hospital–law enforcement training on medical distress recognition, bias mitigation, and de-escalation; conduct regular audits of compliance with corrective consequences for failures.
- Data transparency: Track and publicly report all in-custody incidents in medical facilities, disaggregated by race, disability, and outcome.
To Ms. Grant’s family and community: We extend our deepest condolences. ESOP stands with you in demanding truth, accountability, and reforms that honor Tasha Grant’s life by ensuring this never happens again.
