A full 23 seconds after Runnels pulled the trigger on the X26 Taser, he let it go and handcuffed Bryce. But Bryce wasn’t moving. Runnels told him to get up. Bryce didn’t budge. So Runnels grabbed him by the arms and pulled him, with the boy’s legs dragging on the ground between Runnels’ shuffling feet, toward the side of the road. Then Runnels released Bryce’s arms and allowed him to drop face first onto the street. A snapping thud filled the room — the sound of Bryce’s 175-pound frame hitting the pavement as his teeth crashed together and his jaw dislocated.
Bryce began to moan.“You don’t like to play by the rules, do you,” Runnels said. The Masters could see Bryce’s heart heaving up and down on the screen, an indication that he was going through cardiac arrest. Runnels seemed to ignore all this and, as the video shot by a neighbor makes clear, he put his right foot onto Bryce’s back. “Bryce, better sit up,” he said. “I don’t play games.”
Bryce didn’t respond.
“I’ve been tased a dozen times,” Runnels said to Bryce. “It doesn’t act like that.”
Another officer arrived on scene and Runnels explained that there was a warrant on Bryce’s plate — ostensibly the reason for the stop. The new officer referred to Bryce, lying there stationary. “Wake up, guy,” the officer said. Then, to Runnels: “He’s turning blue.”
Watching the video, Stacy was astounded. “I felt like he would have cared for an injured animal better.”
“I will never get over the fact that he put his foot on Bryce’s back, while he was literally dying,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever, ever be able to forget that.”
As hard as it was to watch, Bryce felt vindicated. He had done exactly what his parents told him to do. “Nothing I could’ve done would have stopped him that day. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Still, seeing himself abused like that was surreal. He was transported back to the moment when everything changed, and despite how hard his life had become, he thought he would do it all the same way again. “If that’s my right, why would I let some cop try to take it away?”