Eagan police ignored man's stroke symptoms during traffic stop, wrongful death suit alleges
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The family of a Cottage Grove man who died after a DWI arrest in Eagan last year alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that police and jail staff mistook symptoms of a major stroke for drug impairment and let him languish for hours without medical treatment.
Kingsley Fifi Bimpong, a legal permanent resident from Ghana, left his post office job before his shift ended on Nov. 16 after complaining of a headache and decreased vision.
While driving in Eagan late that evening, Bimpong, 50, ran a red light, veered into oncoming traffic and drove his vehicle onto the center median of a road.
According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by attorneys at the Robins Kaplan firm on behalf of Bimpong’s partner Rosalind Lewis and cousin Josephine Adu-Gyane, when Eagan Police Sgt. Joseph Moseng stopped Bimpong’s vehicle at 10:44 p.m., Bimpong appeared confused, “could not articulate a complete sentence or thought,” and was unable to state his name, where he was going or where he lived.
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Over the next eight minutes, two other Eagan policemen arrived, including Officer Martin Jensen, who is specially trained as a drug recognition evaluator.
According to body camera video captured by a third officer and partially transcribed in the civil complaint, Moseng allegedly told Jensen that he did not smell alcohol and was “still not convinced that this isn’t medical related more than impairment related.” The plaintiffs allege that Jensen failed to go through the drug recognition evaluation and, “ignored the unassailable fact that Kingsley was suffering from a medical emergency observable from the moment he was stopped.” Jensen and Moseng are also alleged to have muted their body-worn cameras at times, in violation of department policy.
Seventeen minutes into the traffic stop, Jensen and Moseng arrested Bimpong and took him to Eagan Police Department headquarters, where he remained handcuffed while the officers waited for a judge to return a search warrant for Bimpong’s blood. According to the lawsuit, Jensen and Moseng again discussed the possibility that Bimpong could be suffering from a medical issue, but did not get care for him, though his condition continued to deteriorate.
Recalling the traffic stop earlier that night, Moseng allegedly told Jensen “Before you got there, I was like, is this dude having a stro—” before Jensen’s body camera audio goes silent.
After Bimpong’s blood was drawn by EMTs, Jensen and Moseng took him to the Dakota County Jail, where Jensen “created more danger for Kingsley by falsely reporting that he was there with ‘one adult male, no issues.’”
On booking paperwork, a jail staffer noted incorrectly that Bimpong had a “language barrier,” though he spoke English and that a medical questionnaire could not be completed. Though Bimpong was unable to walk under his own power, deputies escorted him to a holding cell.
After about 15 minutes, he stumbled to the toilet area of the cell, fell backwards onto the toilet, and soon collapsed onto the floor. Bimpong lay there for hours, foaming at the mouth and urinating in his pants while multiple deputies passed by the cell’s floor-to-ceiling windows and even conducted “well-being” checks.
After nearly three-and-a-half hours, a nurse and a guard entered the holding cell and took Bimpong’s vital signs. Jail staff called for an ambulance, and EMTs arrived just before 5 a.m. on Nov. 17. Bimpong was transported to a hospital in Hastings, where a CT scan found massive intracerebral bleeding.
He was transferred to United Hospital in St. Paul, where he was declared brain dead. Doctors disconnected him from life support on Nov. 19. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner determined that he died of an intracerebral hemorrhage.
Neither the hospital toxicology screen nor the medical examiner’s post-mortem toxicology report found any drugs or alcohol in his system.
In a statement, the city of Eagan says that while Bimpong’s death is tragic, “he was not exhibiting an objectively serious medical condition that was obvious to lay persons at the time he was in the Eagan officers’ custody and there no indication that he required emergent medical treatment. The statement adds that Bimpong “exhibited signs of drug intoxication” during the traffic stop, “was asked, and denied, having any medical conditions that could explain his behavior,” and was transported to jail “after spending 17 minutes in the presence of EMS professionals.”
MPR News also contacted Dakota County for comment.
