By Dan Belson
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE â Lawyers for the family of Dontae Melton Jr., who died in June after Baltimore Police detained him while waiting close to an hour for an ambulance, said they plan to file a lawsuit after investigators conclude their probe of the in-custody death.
Attorney Larry Greenberg said at a Tuesday news conference that Meltonâs family has authorized his firm to sue âthose responsibleâ for Meltonâs âneedless deathâ on a hot June night, hours after the 31-year-old approached a police cruiser and asked for help.
| ANALYSIS: What the One Big Beautiful Bill means for first responders
The familyâs decision to take legal action comes after the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner deemed Meltonâs death a homicide and after state investigators released hours of body camera footage of Meltonâs encounter with police on June 24. The footage shows officers detaining Melton â who authorities and family members say was experiencing a mental health crisis â as they wait for medics.
The medics didnât arrive, and police ultimately took Melton to a hospital, where he died hours later.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday outside Baltimore Circuit Court, Greenberg said that after police had restrained Melton, they âmocked him, abused him and left him to die.â
âWe will take full legal action in the court standing behind us, because at some point, this behavior needs to end,â Greenberg said, surrounded by members of Meltonâs family. He did not say who specifically would be named as a defendant.
A Baltimore Police spokesperson said Tuesday that the department wouldnât comment on pending litigation. The police department hasnât received a full autopsy report regarding Meltonâs death, spokesperson Lindsey Eldridge said, also noting that the Maryland attorney generalâs office is still investigating the matter.
The lawsuit, Greenberg said, would be filed after the attorney generalâs officeâs Independent Investigations Division, which probes fatal encounters with police, concludes its investigation of Meltonâs death. He said the state medical examinerâs office was âhonestâ in ruling Meltonâs death a homicide, but that there were still loose ends, such as the specific cause of his death.
He called on people who may have witnessed officersâ interactions with Melton in Southwest Baltimore to come forward, calling the details released thus far the âlimited truth.â He said city officials have âtried to point fingers at each otherâ over Baltimoreâs computer-aided dispatch system, an aging emergency communications network that broke down that night.
Authorities have not directly said why medics never responded to the scene, though officials have noted that the dispatch system, which helps public safety agencies coordinate on calls for service, failed that night. Officers are seen on body camera footage becoming increasingly frustrated over the outage and medicsâ absence.
âItâs crazy because this puts the onus on us now,â one officer says in the footage. âWe must have requested medics three or four times. ⊠Itâs just too long. Itâs too long. We have a duty to do our best.â
âLetâs be clear, (the dispatch systemâs failure is) no excuse,â Greenberg said, noting that Grace Medical Center, the hospital where Melton was eventually taken, is a three-minute drive from the intersection where police encountered the 31-year-old and waited for medics.
âWe live in Baltimore City, we have some of the best medical treatment in the world,â he said. âTake him to any one of those hospitals, and it would have kept him alive. But they didnât do it.â
©2025 Baltimore Sun.
Visit baltimoresun.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
