Parents of New Auburn man fatally shot by police in 2022 say mental health professionals should have been on scene
MINNEAPOLIS — Newly released body-camera footage of a December 2022 police shooting is too painful for two Minnesota parents to watch.
Brent Alsleben was killed while he was having a mental health crisis in his New Auburn apartment, about an hour southwest of Minneapolis.
Alsleben had bipolar schizoaffective disorder.
His family had called 911 to get him help for paranoid delusions.
Alsleben's parents, Tara and Jay Sykes, as well as police and paramedics, were there for hours that day trying to get Alsleben to a hospital.
"[Tara] grabbed a SWAT officer and said, 'This is my baby boy. Don't kill him. He just needs help,' right before they went in," Jay Sykes said.
The body-camera footage shows sheriff's deputies telling Alsleben to come out of his apartment with his hands up.
They enter the apartment, and there's a struggle. An officer can be heard saying, "He's got a knife."
Another yells, "Taser!" three times. Alsleben starts to get up off the floor and is shot several times.
"The escalation was unacceptable and unnecessary," Jay Sykes said.
The Sykeses have not seen the footage of Alsleben's final moments.
"I don't know that I could come back from watching my son get shot," Tara Sykes said.
Jay Sykes says he's concerned the videos only show a small piece of what happened that day.
Alsleben's parents say there should've been mental health professionals on scene, a failure they feel cost their son his life.
"We are not anti-police, but we are pro-mental health," Jay Sykes said.
Because Alsleben had a knife and an officer was stabbed, the Sibley County Attorney determined the use of deadly force was justified.
"I don't understand why people suffering from mental illness, threatening suicide, that the result is death by police," Jay Sykes said. "Why? It doesn't make sense."
