Disturbing new video footage shows multiple guards at a for-profit jail on the border between Texas and Arkansas pinning down an African-American father and pepper-spraying him as he cried repeatedly, “I can’t breathe.” Thirty-five-year-old Michael Sabbie died in a jail cell only hours after the attack, which took place in July 2015. This is video surveillance footage of the attack. Listen carefully. A note for our TV audience: The video is disturbing.
Michael Sabbie: “I can’t breathe.”
Officer 1: “What exactly occurred?”
Michael Sabbie: “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
Officer 2: “Put your hands behind your back. Get your hands behind your back! If you don’t put your hands behind your back, you’ll be gassed. Chemical agents will be administered.”
Michael Sabbie: “Man, I can’t breathe.”
Officer 2: “Put your hands behind your back. You’re resisting.”
Michael Sabbie: “Ow! Ow!”
Despite the attack, a medical examiner ruled that Sabbie died of “natural” causes. He’d been arrested three days earlier after a domestic dispute with his wife. The Bi State Jail in which he died is run by the for-profit company LaSalle Corrections. Sabbie was one of more than 800 people who died in jail across the United States in 2015.