In December 2019, Jessica Long feared her 16-year-old son was spiraling into a mental health crisis, drove him to a Lincolnton hospital and asked security officers to help get the defiant youth inside.
Instead, Long says in a new federal lawsuit, her son was tasered, beaten and body slammed by both hospital personnel and Lincoln County Sheriff's deputies, and left bleeding and handcuffed outside the building where he had been taken to get care.
The officers' violent response is captured in full on a 45-minute surveillance video taken outside of Atrium Health Lincoln just after midnight on Dec. 8, 2019. At one point, the footage shows the handcuffed teen, identified in the lawsuit as John Doe, sitting on a blood-stained curb when he is punched in the face by one of the deputies who had responded to a 911 call.