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Nashville, Tennessee — <\/span>A lawsuit alleging Bristol, Tennessee, police officers and paramedics used excessive force on a 23-year-old man having a seizure and failed to give him access to medical care has been dismissed. <\/p>\n A federal judge ruled Monday in favor of the city of Bristol and the officers and paramedics, who argued the statute of limitations had expired by the time the family of Austin Hunter Turner filed the lawsuit over his 2017 death. <\/p>\n His death was one of more than 1,000 nationally<\/a> that an investigation led by The Associated Press identified as happening after police officers used physical force or weapons that were supposed to stop, but not kill, people.<\/p>\n Turner’s mother, Karen Goodwin, filed the lawsuit in 2024 after AP reporters shared police body-camera video they had found<\/a>. His mother had not seen the video, which made the family doubt<\/a> the autopsy report conclusion that he died of a multiple drug toxicity. An attorney for the family said they intend to appeal the decision. <\/p>\n The lawsuit focused on how the video contradicted the police version of what happened inside Turner\u2019s apartment after his girlfriend called 911 for medical help. <\/p>\n Attorneys representing the city of Bristol, the paramedics and some of the officers involved declined to comment when reached by the AP on Tuesday. <\/p>\n The officers had said they shocked him with a Taser and physically restrained him face down because he was fighting paramedics. The lawsuit says the video shows Turner was not punching or kicking and he was not disobeying the paramedics because he was in the middle of a seizure. <\/p>\n The lawsuit says the video shows police and paramedics put \u201csignificant pressure on the back of Mr. Turner\u2019s head and upper back while Turner was face-down, in the prone position, with a spit sock covering his airway, hands cuffed behind his back and legs shackled.\u201d<\/p>\n David Randolph Smith, an attorney for Turner\u2019s mother, said in a statement to the AP they respectfully disagree with the judge\u2019s interpretation of when the statute of limitations began. <\/p>\n \u201cIn our case, the state\u2019s official autopsy affirmatively and incorrectly attributed Austin\u2019s death to \u2018multiple drug toxicity as a consequence of recreational drug use\u2019 and it was not until 2023 – when body\u2011camera footage surfaced and a forensic pathologist reviewed the evidence \u2014 that Karen Goodwin first learned restraint\u2011induced asphyxia, not drugs, caused his death,\u201d said Smith, the family’s attorney in a statement. “We intend to appeal and will ask the Court of Appeals to hold that families in this position are entitled to their day in court when they could not reasonably have discovered the true cause of death until long after the fact, through no fault of their own, but because of misinformation and omissions by government actors.\u201d<\/p>\n