BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) 鈥 It was in the den that Karen Goodwin most strongly felt her son鈥檚 presence: On the coffee table were his ashes, inside a clock with its hands forever frozen at 12:35 a.m., the moment that a doctor had pronounced him dead.
As Goodwin swept and dusted the room, she鈥檇 often find herself speaking to her son, a soothing one-way conversation that helped her keep his spirit alive. She鈥檇 tell him about his nephews and nieces shopping for backpacks for the new school year, or the latest from the Bristol Motor Speedway and her motorcycle ride along Highway 421, one of the most scenic routes in the state.
鈥淚 wish you had been there,鈥 she鈥檇 say wistfully.
Austin Hunter Turner died in 2017, on a night that Goodwin has rewound and replayed again and again, trying to make sense of what happened. Something just didn鈥檛 add up. There was the race to his apartment, the panic of watching her 鈥渂aby boy鈥 struggle to breathe, the chaos of paramedics in the kitchen. Her feelings of helplessness as she prayed for him to live.
Her emotions have been painfully conflicting. There was the deep shame that Turner died of a drug overdose. The doubts when her own memory diverged with the official police narrative. More recently, anger and outrage. She now believes she has spent all these years living with a lie that has tested what was once a resolute faith in the police, paramedics and the legal system.
Goodwin鈥檚 son is among more than 1,000 people across the United States who died over a decade after police restrained them in ways that are not supposed to be fatal, according to in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism.
highlights a central finding of : In the aftermath of fatal police encounters involving the use of Tasers, brute force and other tactics, a lack of accountability permeates the justice system. From the police officers at the scene and their commanders to prosecutors and medical examiners, the system shields officers from scrutiny.
Goodwin and her family are when police tactics go too far in such a system: The truth can be lost. Like the Goodwins, hundreds of families have been left to wrestle with incorrect or incomplete narratives that have recast the lives of the dead, and re-ordered the lives of those left behind.
The terrible night
Goodwin was in bed when her phone rang. It was her son鈥檚 girlfriend, Michelle Stowers. She was frantic. Turner had just collapsed on the kitchen floor.
鈥淗e鈥檚 not moving,鈥 Stowers cried. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think he鈥檚 breathing. What should I do?鈥
The mother鈥檚 heart hammered.
鈥淐all 911. I鈥檓 on my way,鈥 Goodwin said, her mind racing through terrible possibilities.
Was her son alive? Dead? He鈥檇 had a few seizures, but they were nothing serious.
As she sped to Turner鈥檚 apartment on that warm humid night in August 2017, Goodwin called and alerted her husband, Brian, and older son, Dustin. She also dialed her sister but could only utter: 鈥淧ray for Hunter.鈥
When she arrived, Goodwin found her son gasping for breath on the linoleum of his kitchen floor. His eyes were vacant. His body shook. Foam spilled from his mouth.
The mother thought her son might die right then. A paramedic arrived, and Goodwin told him that Turner had suffered minor seizures before.
鈥淗unter, this is momma,鈥 she said, kneeling, pressing an oxygen mask to his face.
The front door burst open, and police officers and firefighters swarmed into the tiny apartment. Medics had requested help restraining Turner to treat him. They thought Turner was resisting.
As the room filled with voices and equipment, Goodwin stepped away, relieved. She and her husband and children had always admired paramedics and police. They were heroes. And she knew they鈥檇 do everything in their power to save her son鈥檚 life.
Then an officer shouted: 鈥淕et up off the floor!鈥 Goodwin heard another say, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to get tased if you keep it up.鈥
She felt bewildered. Her motherly instincts kicked in. 鈥淧lease,鈥 she implored them, 鈥渄on鈥檛 hurt him more than you have to!鈥
The officers were pinning Turner facedown on a recliner. A few minutes later, he was strapped to a stretcher, again facedown.
Goodwin followed them to the waiting ambulance. She peered inside: Her son seemed like he was unconscious, with a strange sort of mask pulled over his head. His legs were bound.
Goodwin felt powerless. That was her son. She鈥檇 give her life for him.
鈥楳y baby needs to rest now鈥
Goodwin followed the ambulance to the Bristol Regional Medical Center.
After a long wait, the emergency room doctor said that 鈥渇or all intents and purposes鈥 Turner was dead. 鈥淵our son is young and strong,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to continue working on him for that reason.鈥
He paused, before continuing: 鈥淲e鈥檒l take you back 鈥 if you think you can handle it.鈥
Steps away, she saw a team of doctors and nurses trying to get Turner鈥檚 heart pumping again. She stared at her son鈥檚 blank face when they used a defibrillator to try to shock him back to life.
Nothing worked.
鈥淲e can keep going,鈥 the doctor said.
Goodwin waved her hand. She needed a moment. Her son wasn鈥檛 moving. He didn鈥檛 respond to her voice, or the life-saving measures. When she鈥檇 touched his chest, it felt like Jell-O, because the paramedics, nurses and doctors had crushed everything in there while trying to save him. Goodwin knew what she had to do.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 enough,鈥 she said. 鈥淢y baby needs to rest now.鈥
As she sat in the sterile hospital waiting room, she wondered: Why her son? He鈥檚 such a gentle, kind soul, Goodwin thought. Everyone loved him.
He was boyishly handsome, with light brown hair and a small goatee and chinstrap of hair along his jawline. A few inches short of 6 feet, Turner had a strong, outdoorsy kind of look. He was outgoing, ready to chat even with strangers.
Turner had a passion for fast motorbikes and owned a maroon Suzuki SV650 that could fly along at 130 mph.
He鈥檇 hit the road with his mom and dad and buddies, racing up steep stretches of the Appalachian Mountains with hairpin turns. Sometimes, he鈥檇 turn so sharp and deep he鈥檇 scrape the knees of his jeans along the ground.
The 23-year-old Turner worked odd jobs to help make ends meet 鈥 lately it was refurbishing furniture.
鈥淚 have plenty of time to grow up,鈥 he told his parents.
Now, as she sat there, she felt those words reverberating in her head.
An overdose?
At 4 a.m., Goodwin looked up and saw her husband rushing into the waiting room. She needed him now, more than ever.
Karen had met Brian in 1996 when he stopped to fill his tank at the gas station where she worked as a cashier. They were immediately attracted to each other. Karen was drawn to his big smile and sarcastic sense of humor, and Brian to the cashier鈥檚 sassy personality and long blonde hair. Karen and Brian were married within a year.
From the beginning, Karen loved how her husband treated her two boys from a previous marriage as his own, teaching them to hunt and fish, ride dirt bikes and motorcycles. An electrician who spent weeks on the road, he had sped the 200 miles south from West Virginia to Bristol in under three hours. Brian Goodwin, a burly tough guy who never cried, was having a hard time holding it together.
鈥淲hat happened?鈥 he asked.
Goodwin said she didn鈥檛 know. She said she鈥檇 overheard a Bristol police officer declare that Turner had died of a drug overdose.
The parents knew their son smoked marijuana. They also knew he got high using Suboxone, a drug used to wean people off opioids. But they didn鈥檛 think either drug could lead to an overdose.
It didn鈥檛 make sense to Goodwin. Why were police saying this, she wondered. They had learned from Turner鈥檚 girlfriend that he had seemed fine when she got home from her late shift at Walmart. He hadn鈥檛 acted stoned. He had collapsed out of the blue. How could this be an overdose?
Ashes
After a memorial service, the Goodwins and two dozen of Turner鈥檚 friends honored his memory with a procession of motorcycles that climbed the sharp hills of the Appalachians. When they returned to Bristol, the group said their goodbyes. That night, Goodwin felt an emptiness in her soul. It would be a long time before she felt anything else.
Brian went back to work after a month. Keeping busy helped him deal with his grief.
But Goodwin couldn鈥檛 find an outlet. The mother tattooed her left arm with an image of her son鈥檚 thumbprint, and a clock set at 12:35. The tattoo artist had mixed traces of Turner鈥檚 ashes into the ink.
Mother and son had enjoyed a special connection. He was a daredevil, a fun-loving kid. Whenever something went wrong 鈥 like the time he hurt himself jumping off a neighbor鈥檚 porch, or crashing her car into a utility pole as he tried to teach himself to drive a stick shift 鈥 he鈥檇 run straight to her. And she was always there to say, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all right, Hunter. It鈥檚 all right.鈥
Her son had always been there for her, too. When she had been diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and surgeons had removed one of her lungs and part of the other, her son had been the one to cheer her up.
Every morning he鈥檇 sit next to his mother on the front porch, covering her with a blanket to keep her warm. Sometimes, he鈥檇 hold his mother鈥檚 trembling hands and whisper, 鈥淚 love you. You鈥檒l be OK, Mom. You鈥檒l be OK.鈥
Now, Goodwin wrestled with existential questions. Why did she fight so hard to beat cancer only to have her son die before her?
As the years wore on, she found solace in the den, next to her son鈥檚 ashes. Sometimes, she鈥檇 think about the weeks and months following Turner鈥檚 death. When she obtained his autopsy report, it explained that he died of an overdose and repeated the official police version of events 鈥 that officers had gone to Turner鈥檚 apartment to help the young man, but he had been too stoned to cooperate. He fought them, and in the end, it had cost him his life.
During that period, she had heard from police that they had tried to save Turner but couldn鈥檛 because of the drugs and his heart.
A strong supporter of law enforcement, Goodwin desperately wanted to believe that police and paramedics had acted appropriately. But something was gnawing at her. Sometimes, she鈥檇 wake up in the middle of the night and hear the police officer threatening to fire his Taser.
She鈥檇 recall that her son seemed to be having a seizure, and police held him down as he struggled to breathe. She had a hard time squaring those actions with what she knew in her heart was a medical emergency.
But she just didn鈥檛 trust her recollection. She felt constantly at war 鈥 her memory pitted against her deep trust in the police.
And more times than not, she ended up pushing her doubts aside. Why would the police lie? She wanted to believe they had done everything they could to save her son.
The Hard Truth
On Aug. 14, she heard a knock on her door. When she opened it, she found two Associated Press reporters who asked if she wanted to know more about how her son had died. They had videos that the family had never seen.
It was not easy for Goodwin to take them up on the offer. She knew it would be painful to revisit the worst night of her life.
After a week of agonizing, she sat down at her kitchen table and stared at a laptop before hitting play on the videos captured by police body cameras. The house was quiet except for the ping of a wind chime.
The videos on her computer screen took Goodwin straight back. Body cameras worn by officers Eric Keller and Kevin Frederick had captured most of the interactions between police, paramedics and Turner.
At times, the figures were difficult to make out, but one thing was clear: From the first moment police arrived, Turner was treated as a suspect resisting arrest 鈥 not as a patient facing an emergency.
Goodwin watched in horror as police officers seemed to ignore the fact they had been dispatched to a medical call.
Paramedics tried to force Turner onto his feet. He managed to get to his knees and momentarily stand. He took a single step and toppled over.
Officers began screaming that Turner was resisting arrest, being combative and disobeying their commands. But the video seemed to show Turner was having a seizure.
During a seizure, the muscles of the arms, legs and face stiffen, then begin to jerk. The videos showed that Turner was not throwing punches. He wasn鈥檛 kicking.
When Keller bounded into the apartment, the video shows he yelled at the flailing Turner, who was pinned down in a recliner chair, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e going to get tased if you keep it up.鈥
Despite paramedics warning him to wait, about 10 seconds later Keller pulled the trigger. Goodwin flinched when she heard the weapon鈥檚 loud pop followed by her son鈥檚 painful cry, as electricity coursed through his body.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going to win this battle,鈥 another paramedic said.
Goodwin was aghast.
鈥淲in what?鈥 she thought. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 a contest. My son isn鈥檛 resisting. He鈥檚 dying!鈥
The force didn鈥檛 end there. A paramedic sprayed a sedative up Turner鈥檚 nose, but most of it ended up on the medic.
Police kept restraining Turner 鈥 even after he was handcuffed facedown on top of the recliner. They shackled his legs.
When police transferred Turner to a gurney, they again put him facedown and strapped him in place. As blood spilled from his mouth, they covered his head with a spit hood.
Once inside the ambulance, an officer sat on Turner鈥檚 body 鈥 even though he was still on his stomach. There was no rush to get him to the hospital. Instead, the body camera showed police officers and paramedics spent six minutes recounting the 鈥渂attle.鈥
It was only then that a paramedic noticed that Turner wasn鈥檛 breathing. Attendants removed the restraints, flipped him over, and began CPR. After about 10 minutes a paramedic walked into the frame. For a moment, he studied his colleagues who were working feverishly to revive Turner. He looked puzzled.
鈥淲hat the hell happened here?鈥 he asked. 鈥淒id we cut his damn airway off?鈥
They said no. As medics continued to work on Turner, the quizzical paramedic asked, 鈥淵鈥檃ll ain鈥檛 recording are you?鈥
The officer turned off his body camera. Goodwin鈥檚 screen suddenly went blank.
鈥楢 damn lie鈥
The Goodwins were livid. The videos raised disturbing questions. So, they decided to drill down into documents 鈥- the police reports and autopsy 鈥- to try to find answers.
They soon became convinced the Bristol law enforcement community had lied about what had happened.
Police didn鈥檛 include any statements in their reports from Karen Goodwin and her other son, Dustin, who had been in the apartment during the encounter. The events police described were a far cry from what Goodwin and her son had seen, or what was captured by the body cameras. They had made Turner out to be a villain.
In a report, Lt. Greg Brown said the paramedics told police the young man was reaching for a knife on the kitchen counter.
鈥淎 damn lie,鈥 Goodwin thought. She鈥檇 seen a paramedic clear the counters before police arrived.
Keller said he fired his Taser to stop Turner from fighting the medical personnel.
Goodwin knew her son was dazed from the seizures. He wasn鈥檛 fighting back. They had no reason to stun him.
Brown wrote in a report that Turner was fighting with medics when he arrived at the apartment. Goodwin was there. She saw no such thing. The body camera showed the opposite.
Using buzzwords that painted the victim as the aggressor, Brown said Turner was 鈥渃ombative,鈥 鈥渁gitated,鈥 and had 鈥渋gnored commands.鈥 Brown noted that Turner had incredible strength like those under the influence of narcotics.
Sullivan County District Attorney Barry Staubus had asked the to examine Turner鈥檚 death.
The investigator talked to witnesses and collected other details, Staubus said in an interview with AP. But after reviewing the TBI report and the body-camera footage, Staubus concluded that Turner died of a drug overdose. Nothing in the autopsy concluded the force and 鈥渞estraint techniques鈥 had caused or contributed to Turner鈥檚 death.
The Goodwins expressed reservations about the state鈥檚 investigation and the prosecutor鈥檚 decision to shield police from accountability. They noted that state investigators never reached out to two of the most important witnesses: Karen Goodwin and Dustin. The state investigator had sent messages to Turner鈥檚 girlfriend and a neighbor at the scene, asking if they鈥檇 talk. They said yes.
They never heard from the investigator again.
Tennessee law keeps confidential the state鈥檚 investigation files, including those that detail fatal police encounters 鈥 unless the death involves a shooting. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation declined to discuss Turner's death.
Bristol鈥檚 chief of police would not answer questions when reached by the AP. Lt. Brown and officers Keller and Frederick did not reply to requests for comment, and neither did paramedics involved. The Bristol Fire Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The Goodwins were also perplexed by the autopsy report. Medical Examiner Eugene Scheuerman had declared Turner鈥檚 death an accident. He died of 鈥淢ultiple Drug Toxicity鈥 related to his use of the opioid in Suboxone and the psychoactive chemical in marijuana.
An analysis found a 鈥渢herapeutic to lethal level鈥 of Suboxone in Turner鈥檚 system. Scheuerman added that 鈥渄ilated cardiomyopathy鈥 鈥 a condition that affects the heart鈥檚 ability to pump enough oxygen-rich blood 鈥 was a contributing factor to Turner鈥檚 death.
The autopsy report also repeated the police version of events.
He didn鈥檛 note that police officers had placed Turner facedown and applied their body weight, a tactic that has long been criticized by experts for restricting breathing.
The Goodwins wondered if the medical examiner had bothered to watch the police videos. Scheuerman has since died.
Three experts who reviewed the documents for AP related to the incident disagreed with the autopsy findings: they said Turner did not die of a drug overdose. Instead, they said the Bristol police made critical errors that contributed to Turner's death, including placing him facedown in a way that could restrict his breathing.
"They didn't understand the dangers of prolonged restraint and the pressure on his back," said Jack Ryan, a police training expert and a former police officer and administrator.
Forever midnight
Karen and Brian Goodwin said they were still figuring out how to come to terms with the truth. They had blamed their son for his own demise and had felt incredibly guilty about that. They are now convinced he didn鈥檛 die from drugs 鈥 he was killed by police force.
What hurts so much is that many people in town believe Turner died of an overdose. The parents still can hear the whispers in grocery stores and restaurants: Their boy would still be alive if he hadn鈥檛 been a drug user.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the stigma that we鈥檝e had to live with, 鈥榊our son was a dumbass.鈥 We鈥檝e had to live with that as his legacy,鈥 Brian said. 鈥淚 want everyone to know the truth.鈥
What鈥檚 next? A lawsuit? Becoming advocates for holding police accountable in arrest-related deaths so another family doesn鈥檛 go through their pain? They wonder how they will react if police pull them over along the road. They still support the police. But will they be respectful?
Karen worries she may be running out of time. Her health, fragile from the cancer fight, has been flagging. She is glad she learned the truth, but she fears she won鈥檛 live long enough to do anything with it.
鈥淢y son didn鈥檛 do this to himself,鈥 Karen said, fighting back tears. 鈥淗e didn鈥檛 have to die 鈥 His death killed a part of us.鈥
She turned and studied the clock on the coffee table. Even with all the new information, the clock鈥檚 hands remain fixed, unmoving, stuck forever at 35 minutes past midnight.
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AP reporter Reese Dunklin contributed to this report from Dallas.
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This story is part of an ongoing investigation led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation includes the Lethal Restraint , and the documentary, 鈥淒ocumenting Police Use Of Force,鈥 premiering April 30 on PBS.
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The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. This story also was supported by Columbia University鈥檚 Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Contact AP鈥檚 global investigative team at [email protected] or
Mitch Weiss And Kristin M. Hall, The Associated Press
