The civil rights attorneys at Minneapolis-based law firm Robins Kaplan LLP have filed a lawsuit against Eagan police officers, Dakota County correctional officers, and Dakota County, after 50-year-old Minnesota resident Kingsley Fifi Bimpong suffered a hemorrhagic stroke which resulted in his death. The complaint alleges that the authorities failed to take appropriate action for five hours and 40 minutes while Kingsley was in custody, exhibiting obvious physical and cognitive abnormalities that required urgent medical attention.
On the evening of November 16, 2024, Kingsley left work early due to a headache and was pulled over by an Eagan police officer due to a traffic violation. The complaint notes that from the beginning of their interaction, Kingsley was exhibiting signs of needing immediate medical care. Body-worn camera (BWC) video footage shows that Kingsley could not understand simple directions and could not share his own name, where he was going, or where he lived. The Drug Recognition Expert (DRE), called to the scene to conduct a 12-step evaluation designed to determine if a person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, failed to complete the evaluation. He and the defendant-Sergeant decided it “would just be a whole bunch of time wasted.” Despite having no criminal history, no evidence at the scene of drug or alcohol use, and no DRE evaluation indicating intoxication, the officers took him to the Eagan Police department for a blood draw.
When Kingsley arrived at the police department to wait for a search warrant for his blood, his medical decline worsened. Drool seeped onto his beard which he did not wipe off, he nodded off to sleep, and his right hand and arm showed signs of weakness – which is a classic sign of a stroke. While at the police station, EMS personnel that arrived solely for the purpose of a blood draw asked if the officers planned on transferring Kingsley to the hospital. The officers discussed not taking him to the hospital because then an officer would have to wait with Kingsley there. The Dakota County Jail would be his final destination.
Kingsley had difficulty walking through the police station and struggled to get back into the squad car for his transport to Jail. One of the officers was caught on BWC saying, “before you got there, I was like, is this dude having a stro—." The complaint alleges the word “stroke” is cut off because the officer muted his BWC.
According to the jail profile report, Kingsley arrived at the jail around 1:09 a.m. on November 17, 2024. Upon alerting staff to their arrival, the officer reported he was there with “[o]ne adult male, no issues.” Kingsley struggled to get out of the officer’s squad car and then staggered around the sallyport. His right foot appeared to be dysfunctional – at times dragging behind his body. By this time, Kingsley had many objective stroke indicators, including one-sided weakness, loss of coordination, sudden severe headache, vision issues, and confusion.
In the intake area, Kingsley was unable to hold himself upright, requiring assistance on both of his arms. Jail surveillance video shows that Kingsley urinated on himself multiple times, having lost complete control of his bladder, and rolled around in agony for the next hour and a half. The complaint notes that correctional officers continued their “well-being” checks at various times during Kingsley’s continued suffering and deterioration, without alerting medical personnel.
One of the defendants would later write that she noticed Kingsley was foaming at the mouth and having seizure-like activity. After three hours and 26 minutes in his cell, Kingsley was cold to the touch and unresponsive to painful stimuli. His eyes were non-reactive to light and his tongue and feet were grayish in color. At this point, Narcan was administered three times without any response. Administering Narcan without a response informed the correctional officers that Kingsley was not suffering from drug intoxication. Eventually EMS was called, and Kingsley was cuffed and shackled onto a gurney for transport to the hospital.
At the hospital, it was determined that Kingsley required a higher level of care and he was transferred to another facility. Kingsley was determined to be brain dead. After a discussion with Kingsley’s family, in which the doctors explained that he could not survive, Kingsley was disconnected from the ventilator and died on Nov. 19, 2024.
Lead attorney Katie Bennett said, “As our complaint alleges, the police and correctional officers acted on incorrect and unfounded assumptions about Kingsley as justification for treating a person suffering from classic stroke symptoms with callous indifference that resulted in his death. The shocking deliberate indifference from local authorities stripped Kingsley of his last safeguard: the right to basic medical care. No one should lose their life in custody simply because those responsible choose silence and neglect over compassion and responsibility. A jail cell should never become a death sentence simply because cries for help were ignored.”
The civil rights team representing Kingsley’s family includes Katie Bennett, Robert Bennett, Andrew Noel, Marc Betinsky, and Greta Wiessner.
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