Family of Black postal worker who died after police ignored his stroke files $120M lawsuit

Kingsley Fifi Bimpong’s family says police officers showed “deliberate indifference” to his stroke symptoms, which led to his death.

Communities are outraged and seeking justice for Kingsley Fifi Bimpong, a Black postal worker in Minnesota who died in police custody after officers allegedly ignored signs of his stroke during a traffic stop. Last week, Bimpong’s family filed a federal lawsuit against Eagan police, Dakota County, and its correctional officers for the “deliberate indifference” to the 50-year-old’s medical needs during the reported five hours and 40 minutes he was in custody. 

“At every step along the way with Eagan [police] and the jail defendants, it was a conscious choice of deliberate indifference to not bring him to the hospital,” Katie Bennett, the family’s attorney, said, per CBS Minnesota. 

According to the lawsuit, the incident took place on November 16, 2024, after Bimpong left work early due to a headache. On his way home, he made a left turn on red, which led to the Eagan Police pulling him over. During the traffic stop, Bimpong reportedly could not tell officers “the simplest of facts—his own name, where he was coming from, where he was going, or where he lived.” 

Bodycam footage from one of the officers at the traffic stop even revealed an officer suggesting that Bimpong may have been experiencing a stroke, due to the “serious physical and cognitive abnormalities,” as cited in the lawsuit. So much so that the responding officer called Officer Martin Jensen, a Drug Recognition Evaluator (DRE) specially trained to distinguish medical emergencies from drug impairment, to assess Bimpong’s condition. However, the lawsuit claims that Officer Jensen didn’t conduct the typical evaluation and was heard saying on the body cam footage that doing the 30-45 minute evaluation would be “a whole bunch of time wasted.”

Ultimately, paramedics were not called, and Bimpong was transferred to Dakota County Jail, where the lawsuit claims his condition worsened, despite officers doing multiple wellness checks and citing “inmate and cell OK” in the official jail logs. 

“[He] ends up losing control of his bladder, rolling around in his own urine – and clearly in pain and struggling for hours when no one is helping him,” Bennett said. “There were checks happening. They weren’t reacting to anything that could easily be observed, [such as] him on the floor.”

The 50-year-old, who was left lying in his own urine for hours, did not receive medical attention until he began foaming at the mouth and having what reportedly looked like a seizure. Though he was eventually transferred to a hospital, Bimpong died after suffering a massive brain bleed.

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“While Mr. 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 [was] no indication that he required emergent medical treatment,” the City of Eagan said in a statement per KARE11.  

“This is one of the worst jail deaths we’ve ever seen,” Bennett told the outlet. 

The recently filed lawsuit accuses police and correctional officers of acting on “incorrect and unfounded assumptions about Kingsley” and treating him “with callous indifference that resulted in his death.” Now the family is seeking $120 million in damages and policy changes at the Dakota County Jail.