The Pulaski County sheriff's office released security and body camera footage Friday afternoon showing a December arrest that ended in the death of a man, one week after a prosecutor cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing, attributing the death to a rare and hard-to-detect sickle cell disease complication.
The video depicts the Dec. 10 arrest of Terence Caffey, 30, of Little Rock at the Movie Tavern at 11300 Bass Pro Parkway in Little Rock. Caffey was arrested after he began fighting with theater employees.
Authorities included unedited footage from a variety of perspectives and a roughly 43-minute video summarizing the incident through theater security camera footage and body camera footage from deputies and Little Rock police officers. Camera footage from an Arkansas State Police trooper also was provided, although he did not appear to have an active role in the arrest.
Last Friday, Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for the 6th Judicial District, in a letter to Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins, wrote that he could not find any wrongdoing by any of the officers involved, although he thought some first responders involved could have done more to treat Caffey, even if it would not have saved his life.
Capt. Mark Swagerty, who had been working off-duty security at the theater, was the first to respond and ended up restraining Caffey on the floor in the theater using his body weight for around seven minutes, Jegley wrote.
"At no time did any officer use more ... physical force to restrain Mr. Caffey than which is required by law," Jegley wrote.
Jegley cited the medical examiner's opinion that Caffey died of "sickle cell trait-related sickling crisis during exertion, struggle and restraint," writing that the little-understood complication would not have been clear to officers or first responders on the scene.
In the video, first responders, apparently firefighters, approach Caffey, who is lying handcuffed face-down on the ground in front of the theater with multiple officers surrounding him. After struggling with several officers inside, Caffey struggled to stand and walk, and officers carried him out.
As he's being carried out the theater's doors, Caffey appears to start resisting the officers carrying him, yelling "I can't breathe, I'm dead!"
Officers tell him he's OK, but he seems to struggle more, leading at least one officer to say "Just drop him."
Officers appear to drop the handcuffed Caffey a short distance to the concrete outside, and one officer later mentions that Caffey tried to bite one of them while handcuffed, although the video does not show the exchange clearly.
Jegley cited the medical examiner's findings that Caffey suffered no fatal trauma during the arrest other than the medical complication.
Officers tell two arriving firefighters that two people were inside the theater, one who had been choked and another who had been elbowed in the face during the fight with Caffey in the theater hallway.
They tell first responders that Caffey is the suspect and he has a laceration on his head, but they don't treat him right away. A Little Rock officer had earlier said on his radio that first responders might be needed to medically aid the suspect.
Officers put Caffey in the back seat of a patrol vehicle after the first responders arrive.
A bloody scrape is visible on Caffey's temple when he is in the vehicle that was not seen after the initial fight in the theater.
There is vehicle camera footage of Caffey being placed into the back seat, where he appears dazed, but the video cuts off. A caption states that the back seat footage was lost and could not be recovered, even after contacting the manufacturer for help.
First responders do not treat Caffey until about 13 minutes later, when a deputy checks on him and finds him unresponsive. At that time, Caffey was shocked with a defibrillator three times and given epinephrine and amiodarone, as well as NARCAN, all of which had no effect.
Caffey died at the hospital after an hour of unsuccessful CPR.
The "level of care" Caffey received from first responders was "disturbing in light of the tragic outcome," Jegley wrote in the letter.
The video does not shed any more light on why Caffey initially began fighting with the theater employees. There is no audio in the theater's security footage, which shows Caffey leave a theater auditorium and wander around, at one point sitting on the floor and throwing items out of his pockets.
During the course of the arrest, one officer asks Caffey what drugs he had taken and Caffey responds, somewhat unclearly, that he had been using marijuana.
In March, attorney Ben Crump, known for representing civil rights cases, and members of Caffey's family called for the release of footage of the incident, accusing deputies of using excessive force that led to his death. Crump compared Caffey's death to that of George Floyd.
Crump's office could not be reached Friday afternoon, and it was not immediately clear if he had made any legal filings involving Caffey's death.