The family of a Colorado man is suing a police officer and firefighter from Colorado Springs after they responded to a mental health crisis and allegedly choked that man to death.
Kevin Dizmang was 63 when his family said he was experiencing a mental health crisis. His family and their attorneys announced the federal lawsuit against responders from the Colorado Springs Crisis Response Team in front of the Colorado Springs City Hall on Tuesday.
The lawsuit says Colorado Springs Police Officer Sean Reed and Colorado Springs Fire Department paramedic Nick Fisher killed Dizmang on Nov. 15, 2022 as he was in the middle of a mental health crisis. Dizmang has a documented history of PTSD and schizophrenia but had not hurt anyone that day, his family says.
“Crisis response teams are specifically designed to prevent tragedies like this,” said Harry Daniels, of the attorneys representing Dizmang’s family. “Instead they strangled a man begging for his life and laughed about it in the emergency room while he was dying.”