Phoenix police responded to 3rd Avenue and Osborn Road Friday morning to reports of a man complaining of chest pains who was walking down the center of the street.
Video from the scene showed dozens of patrol vehicles outside of a Firestone store.
Investigators say the man has complained of chest pains at a nearby Safeway grocery store, but he became combative. People living in the area watched the bare-chested man walk down the center of Osborn Road while yelling.
When police arrived, they say the man became combative. Police eventually placed him in handcuffs, and forced him to the ground. Police say the man was put in handcuffs for his own safety. Once in custody, police say the man was in medical distress.
"No Tasers were used on the guy, and the only force our officers used was when they tried to get him out of the roadway," said Officer James Holmes.
A witness's video show police doing CPR on the road before paramedics took the man away. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. That witness, Jason Butler, questioned the officers' use of force.
"It was definitely excessive force," Butler said. "It doesn't take five cops to do one little guy."
Police have not released the name of the man who died, and his medical history was not immediately known.
"Right now he should be in a mental ward or in a hospital getting treatment, not resting in the morgue somewhere," Butler said.
