Ohio prosecutors have announced reckless homicide charges against two police officers in the death of a Man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club in Canton while telling officers he couldn’t breathe.

Stark County Prosecutor Kyle Stone told reporters Saturday that charges against Canton Officers Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch were returned by a grand jury in the April 18 death of Frank Tyson, a 53-year-old resident. East Canton arrested shortly after a vehicle accident that had severed a utility pole.

Police body camera footage showed Tyson, who was black, resisting and repeatedly saying, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff” as he was taken to the ground, and he told officers he couldn’t breathe. .

The officers told Tyson that he was fine, to calm down and stop fighting while he was handcuffed face down, and the officers joked with bystanders and flipped through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was in a medical crisis.

The county coroner’s office ruled Tyson’s death a homicide in August, also listing a heart condition and cocaine and alcohol intoxication as contributing factors.

Stone said the charges were third-degree felonies punishable by a maximum sentence of 36 months in prison and a $10,000 fine. In response to a question Saturday, he said there was no evidence to support charges against any bystanders.

He Stark County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Saturday that Schoenegge and Burch had been booked into the county jail. An official said there was no information available about who might represent them. The Canton Police Department previously said the two had been placed on paid administrative leave per department policy.

Tyson family attorney Bobby DiCello said in a statement that the arrests were a relief because the officers involved in what he called Tyson’s “inhumane and brutal death will not escape prosecution.” But he called it “bittersweet because it makes official what they have known for a long time: Frank is a homicide victim.”

The county president NAACP ChapterHector McDaniel called the charges “consistent with the behavior we saw.”

“We believe we are moving in the right direction toward transparency, accountability and truth,” McDaniel said, according to the Canton Repository.

Tyson had been released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years in a kidnapping and robbery case and was almost immediately declared in violation of post-release monitoring supervision for failing to report to a parole officer, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. .