Comply Or Die – Police Kill a Man Over a Misdemeanor DUI Charge.

Edward Bronstein was a husband and father of 5 beautiful children.  He was stopped for suspicion of DUI and arrested. At the jail, the police secured a search warrant to draw his blood to try and prove his guilt. Edward died because 6 large male officers used their body weight to crush his face-first into the concrete floor to draw blood.  As Edward is pinned down on his face, you can hear him screaming “I can’t breathe”. For 3 minutes he screamed. 12 times, 12 times he screamed “I Can’t Breathe”. They ignored his cries until his body went limp as he suffocated.  After the blood is drawn, an officer slaps Edward’s dead body in the face to try and wake him up.  It was 14 minutes before anyone administered CPR to his dead body.

It is important to know that Edward posed no threat to officers. In the video, you can hear him calmly respond to the officers that he is not interested in fighting.  He simply states that he has a fear of needles, which is called “trypanophobia.”  This is a real, debilitating fear and the CDC says that 25% of the population in the United States have this condition.

You also can hear an officer threaten Edward for compliance. “You are bringing the fight to us, not us.  Otherwise, you are going face down on the mat and we are going to keep going.”  These police officers kept going; they killed this man just like happened with George Floyd.  Not a single officer has been charged or experienced any type of disciplinary action, much less criminal prosecution for killing this man when they crushed the life out of him.

Proper protocols – and common sense – required placing Edward on his side to breathe correctly or placing him upright in a chair. This test was not required to charge him with a crime. People are regularly prosecuted without such evidence.

Edward had been arrested and was in jail. He had been searched and posed no risk to anyone. Edward was killed because the officers didn’t want their authority challenged as they tried to get a little more evidence for a misdemeanor crime.

Our heart goes out to Edward Bronstein’s wife and 5 children.  We pray that justice is served for them.