AG releases video of struggle preceding inmate’s death 11%

By Geoff Kelly29%

8/5/2026, 10:40:06 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Anecdotal, and Confirmation Bias, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 7% saturation with 36 hits. Analysis detected 260 faulty-reasoning hits from 517 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22% and a BS Rank of 11% (25,065 of 28,112 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.20% of the article peer group.

Body-worn camera video of an Aug. 8, 2026 altercation preceding the death of Erie County Holding Center inmate Shaun Humphrey. 
Video: New York State Attorney General. 
State investigators yesterday released three-year-old body-camera video of Erie County Holding Center guards violently restraining a man in their custody until he becomes unresponsive. 
Shaun Humphrey, 52, was hospitalized after the altercation and died a week later, on Aug. 
15, 2023. 
Investigative Post broke the story of Humphrey’s death after the New York State Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations opened an inquiry six months after he died. 
The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Humphrey’s death a homicide, according to Melissa Wischerath, who represents Humphrey’s daughter in a wrongful death lawsuit . 
(That means his death was caused by the action or inaction of another person.) 
The death certificate lists the cause of death as “asphyxia due to a prone position with compression of torso,” Wischerath told reporter Bruce Rushton at the time. 
That’s similar to the cause of death for George Floyd, whose killing at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked nationwide protests and calls for police reforms in 2020. 
The attorney general released videos taken from the body-worn cameras of five officers . 
The longest of the five, at over 19 minutes, comes from Sgt. 
Stacey Athans. 
In the videos, jail deputies indicate they believe Humphrey, who is snoring heavily, has suffered some sort of seizure. 
They administer Narcan, after which Humphrey regains consciousness and begins to moan, shout and struggle against efforts to handcuff him. 
Deputies, imploring him to “relax” and “stop resisting,” kneel on top of him for several minutes, until he loses consciousness again. 
They then administer CPR in an attempt to revive him. 
According to Isaac, Humphrey’s daughter, a sheriff’s detective told her that Humphrey was placed in the cell at 9:15 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2024, the day before the fatal encounter. 
“The detective called me shortly after [the incident], and that was when he told me it appeared my dad had suffered a seizure and had gone into full cardiac arrest,” Isaac told Investigative Post. 
“He then told me that because they assumed it was either a seizure or maybe some type of possible overdose that they had Narcan’d him two times. 
And it was after they had Narcan’d him that he became aggressive, but that was a symptom of being Narcan’d.” 
Shaun Hunphrey. 
Photo: Humphrey family. 
Humphrey, a Seneca Nation member who stood nearly six foot five inches tall, once played professional lacrosse for the Buffalo Bandits, according to his daughter. 
He owned construction companies and once ran for Seneca Nation president. 
He is buried on the Cattaraugus Reservation, on property where he built a house for himself and his family. 
Isaac lives there now. 
In August 2024 she sued Erie County, Sheriff John Garcia and the jail deputies who subdued her father in state court. 
That lawsuit was moved to federal court two months later and continues. 
Isaac filed another lawsuit in state court in November 2024, which also remains open . 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 5.2%Geoff Kelly: 3.7%Investigative Post: 3.0%Confirmation Bias5.2%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.9%Investigative Post: 0.9%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 5.4%Geoff Kelly: 2.2%Investigative Post: 2.7%Availability Heuristic5.4%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.4%Investigative Post: 0.6%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 5.2%Geoff Kelly: 0.6%Investigative Post: 0.4%Hindsight Bias5.2%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.5%Investigative Post: 0.5%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 2.4%Investigative Post: 3.5%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.4%Investigative Post: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.4%Investigative Post: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 2.9%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.3%Sunk Cost Effect2.9%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 2.0%Investigative Post: 1.4%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 1.1%Investigative Post: 1.3%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 4.1%Geoff Kelly: 6.6%Investigative Post: 10.2%Negativity Bias4.1%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.8%Investigative Post: 0.5%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 3.7%Geoff Kelly: 0.9%Investigative Post: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error3.7%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.5%Investigative Post: 0.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.2%Investigative Post: 0.2%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 7.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.5%Investigative Post: 0.3%Halo Effect7.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 1.2%Investigative Post: 0.8%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.6%Investigative Post: 0.8%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 1.6%Investigative Post: 2.0%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.5%Investigative Post: 0.6%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.5%Investigative Post: 0.7%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.1%Investigative Post: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 3.2%Investigative Post: 2.9%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.1%Investigative Post: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.4%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 2.4%Investigative Post: 2.7%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.6%Investigative Post: 0.5%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 3.9%Geoff Kelly: 1.3%Investigative Post: 1.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)3.9%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 5.4%Geoff Kelly: 0.9%Investigative Post: 1.6%Anecdotal5.4%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 2.7%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.5%Ambiguity (Equivocation)2.7%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.4%Investigative Post: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.1%Investigative Post: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.1%Investigative Post: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.0%Investigative Post: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.9%Investigative Post: 0.9%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 4.8%Geoff Kelly: 1.8%Investigative Post: 2.8%Biased Writer Voice4.8%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.3%Investigative Post: 0.4%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.2%Investigative Post: 0.9%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.2%Investigative Post: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Geoff Kelly: 0.2%Investigative Post: 0.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

517 words analyzed.

Speakers

3speakers32%attributed speech352writer words
Selected voice

Melissa Wischerath

48%flagged-word coverage
52 attributed words32% of attributed speech45% writer coverage
0%25.0%50.0%Biased Writer Voice+48.1 ptsWriter: 0.0%Melissa Wischerath: 48.1%48.1%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

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