KARE 11 Investigates: Postal worker died after police mistook stroke for drug impairment

At the jail, video shows Bimpong stumbling, unable to complete the booking process. He was placed in a holding cell, where he fell, urinated on himself repeatedly, and writhed on the floor. Guards conducting legally-mandated well-being checks repeatedly wrote “inmate and cell OK” in the official jail logs – even though security video showed him sprawled across the floor in his own waste, unable to stand. 

For more than three hours, correctional officers can be seen walking past his cell while he lay on the floor in obvious distress. The jail nurse was not called until a female guard noted he was foaming at the mouth and having seizure-like activity. Assuming a drug overdose, based on his DWI arrest by the DRE officer, the nurse administered Narcan three times without response. 

When paramedics finally arrived, Bimpong’s blood pressure was measured at a life-threatening 240/216 – which indicated a hypertensive crisis. 

Body-worn camera captured a conversation between the nurse and a guard discussing how Bimpong was ignored, and the so-called well-being checks were not being done properly. 

As Bimpong was being loaded onto a stretcher, the guard tells the jail nurse what happened earlier.  

“He said, ‘he’s been that way all night, not to worry about it,’” said the guard. 

The nurse replies, “That’s not okay.”  

“Well,” the guard responded, “this person (the other guard) is not checking when he’s doing rounds. He’s just walking by and scanning.”  

Bimpong was rushed to Regina hospital in Hastings and ultimately transferred to United Hospital in St Paul, but it was too late.  

Tests showed he’d had a large intraparenchymal hemorrhage – a massive brain bleed – that had caused his brain to shift and his brain stem to squeeze out of the bottom of his skull. 

He was declared brain dead and removed from life support on November 19, 2024. 

Toxicology reports, by both the hospital and later the state crime lab, confirmed no drugs were in his system. The assumption he’d overdosed on drugs was clearly wrong.