Attorneys say Leon Davis walked into the hospital for help and died on its hallway floor.

The family of Leon Davis filed a wrongful death lawsuit today in King County Superior Court against the City of Federal Way, the Federal Way Police Department, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and others. The suit claims Davis died after police officers and hospital staff pinned Davis face down and handcuffed him on a hallway floor at St. Francis Hospital for at least 25 minutes, even after he said he could not breathe.

The King County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide. The examiner found that Davis was “restrained in a prone position for a minimum of 25 minutes.”

In addition to filing the suit, the Davis family is releasing unredacted body-worn camera footage of Davis’s death that they have obtained. The Federal Way Police Department has refused to release the footage, citing a litany of reasons that attorneys say are neither legally nor logically sound.

Davis, 27, graduated from Kent Meridian High School and enrolled at Green River College, where he studied music. According to the family’s attorneys, he had never been in trouble with the law.

According to the suit, Davis admitted himself to St. Francis Hospital on March 12, 2026, seeking help for a medical condition. Hospital staff treated him with medications that left him confused, dizzy, and paranoid. Two days later, when he tried to leave, hospital security staff tackled, beat, and physically held him down.

According to Simeon Osborn, one of the attorneys representing Davis’s family, officers held Davis down when they arrived, pinning him face down to the ground for at least 25 minutes.

“Leon pleaded with officers to let him up as he desperately tried to breathe under the weight of his body and the bodies of the hospital security personnel and Federal Way police officers holding him against the ground,” Osborn said. “He died on a hospital floor yards away from the Progressive Care Unit, where doctors and nurses are trained to respond to exactly this kind of emergency.”

The 22-page complaint alleges that when Federal Way police officers arrived, they did not ask about the effect of the medications Davis had received or about his diagnosis. They ignored his pleas for help and instead placed an ill-fitting spit hood over his face, further compromising his ability to breathe. Body-camera footage shows that Davis’s mouth and nose were so bloodied that a puddle had formed on the floor before officers put the hood on him.

The state attorney general’s model use-of-force policy states that hoods should not be used “where the restrained person is bleeding profusely from the area around the mouth or nose.” The Federal Way use-of-force policy claims to be consistent with that model policy, Davis’s lawyers say.

Roger Rogoff, another attorney representing the family, noted that both the Federal Way Police Department and hospital staff failed to follow training for this situation.

“The defendants violated their medical training, police training, use-of-force training, agency policies, and simple common sense when they pinned an overweight, exhausted, sedated, handcuffed, and bleeding man, face down, to the ground for nearly a half-hour,” Rogoff added.

Osborn notes that other municipalities have policies to release police video quickly, recognizing the value of transparency.

“There is no plausible reason for the police or prosecutors to deny the public access to these videos for more than seven months,” Osborn noted. “Withholding the video doesn’t change what happened to Leon. It just breeds distrust.”

The family has shared the complete 1 1/2-hour body-worn police footage with news outlets on October 27, 2026.

“When I saw the video for the first time, I cried for hours,” said Shannice Johnson, Leon Davis’s sister. “No one should have to watch someone they love slowly die while doctors and nurses stand by. I know that by releasing the video, others will share my horror, but it is important to me and my family that everyone sees how they treated my kid brother.”

The suit names the City of Federal Way, the Federal Way Police Department, Police Chief Andrew Hwang, CommonSpirit Health, CommonSpirit Washington, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which operates St. Francis Hospital, and Saint Francis Community Hospital as defendants.

The complaint cites claims for wrongful death, negligence, battery, unlawful imprisonment, and medical malpractice.

The complaint seeks damages in an amount to be proven at trial.

Accredited media outlets can access the unredacted body camera video by contacting Mark Firmani at mark@junostrat.com.

Source: Osborn Machler Neff PLLC
Cause/Case Number: No. 26-2-35189-9 KNT

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261027900068/en/