tonight, newly released videos show in graphic details the minutes leading to the death of a virginia man while in police custody. it shows officers tasing him over and over where the officers took him for medical help. he never made it inside, the officers fired repeatedly at him while he was in handcuffs. the videos are only now coming to light as a result of a wrongful death lawsuit. reporter: 46-year-old linwood lambert was allegedly acting strange when south boston, virginia, police decided to get him checked out at a local emergency room. we re not locking you up. what we re doing here is we re going to take you to the emergency room. going to get you looked at and make sure you re good to go. but during the ride police video shows lambert becomes
6:06 a.m., roughly an hour after police first took lambert from the hotel. local police declined to comment to msnbc. in court papers, police say the use of force was appropriate and necessary because mr. lambert destroyed property and was a danger to others. virginia state police conducted an investigation and prosecutors say a criminal inquiry is still open two years later. earlier this year, linwood lambert s sister filed a federal several rights wrongful death lawsuit against the police. that lawsuit led to a court order forcing police to turn over those videos from the night mr. lambert died. here s what linwood lambert s sister said about seeing those videos for the first time just a few weeks ago. we couldn t eat, we couldn t sleep. we was calling each other at 1:00 in the morning after watching that video and every day got worse.
obviously the scenario changed from a mental health observation to one of custodial. i mean, once they placed him under arrest then they started following procedures based on a typical arrest scenario. reporter: officers take lambert from outside the hospital to the police station. by the time they arrive he appears to be unconscious. an ambulance was called, but lambert could not be revived. his family has filed a $25 million lawsuit alleging, quote, the officers conduct constitutes murder saying excessive force and negligence contributed to his death. the south boston police department and the three officers involved have denied these claims. a statement from their attorney says in part, quote, we are vigorously defending the case. our position is reaffirmed by the reports of two independent well-qualified experts in the field. while taser logs appear to show the officers pulled the trigger at least 18 times in a span of 30 minutes with one of the officers using a taser 15 times
discovery. and we have a trial date early next spring. and so, have you been able to obtain through discovery all of the police reports in this case? we have. we assume we have. the police reports related to the police officers who were there that night, we did. and what is the clearest narrative that you see in the police reports that explains what they did? well, the police reports do mimic what s contained on the videotape, but it doesn t show they don t summarize, i think, the graphic nature of the video. it doesn t reveal mr. lambert begging for them not to tase him. it doesn t mention the fact that he s struggling for breath and he s having difficulty, he s prespiring profusely in the back of the car and he was confined in the back of that car and he wasn t responding to their commands so they tased him
x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. at 5:00 a.m. on may 4, 2013, three police officers responded to a disturbance call at a motel in a small town in southern virginia called south boston. the officers found 46-year-old linwood lambert who appeared delusional, they said. they decided to drive him to a hospital emergency room for medical attention. when mr. lambert reached that emergency room, he was pronounced dead, but that was nearly 90 minutes after the police decided to take him to that emergency room. now msnbc has obtained 80 minutes of police cam video and hospital surveillance video that reveal some of what happened before mr. lambert died.