OKCPD Release Body Camera Video Of Man Arrested For Bicycle Violation, Later Died In Custody

A man awaiting transfer to the Garfield County jail died last Friday from apparent suicide while in custody at the Oklahoma County Detention Center. 

Oklahoma City police arrested Isiah Mitchell, 26, on a bicycle violation and a nearly seven year-old warrant out of Garfield County. Police released the officer’s body camera footage on Friday, along with the dash camera video.  

 An officer pulled Mitchell over for around 11 a.m. for riding his bicycle into traffic near north Barnes Avenue and Interstate 44. The officer explained to Mitchell why he stopped him.

 “You’re a bike,” Officer Bryant Hodge, Oklahoma City Police Department, said. “You gotta follow traffic laws.”

 According to the arrest report, Mitchell told the officer that “he was on his way to buy Fentanyl and was happy that I kept him from making a very bad decision.”

 “Fentanyl ain’t something we need to be playing with,” Hodge said. “That stuff’s going to kill you.”

 While in custody and in the patrol car, the officer found a Driving While Intoxicated warrant out of Garfield County on Mitchell’s record. The warrant was from 2016. 

“You didn’t appear for your court date,” Hodge said.

Mitchell replied that he was shot in the leg and that was why he missed the 2016 court date. 

Three days later, Oklahoma County Detention Center staff found Mitchell attempting suicide in his cell. Mitchell was pronounced deceased at a local hospital about an hour and 20 minutes later.

Jail officials said the Garfield County Sheriff's Office wanted Mitchell to be held on the misdemeanor warrant and he was awaiting transfer. The Garfield County Sheriff told News 9 they do not have enough deputies to pick up inmates from other counties on the weekend and would have picked Mitchell up on Monday, the day he died.

Jail officials said Mitchell’s death was still under investigation and could not confirm if he was on suicide watch or sharing a cell with another inmate. The state medical examiner will determine Mitchell’s cause of death.