LAPD Releases Heartbreaking Video Of NBA Player's Final Moments

SHERMAN OAKS, CA — Stats tell the story of the rise and fall of former NBA player Tyler Honeycutt’s career, but in death, he was more than a statistic.

The Los Angeles police Department released video Tuesday of Honeycutt’s tragic final moments. The Sherman Oaks resident shot himself after exchanging gunfire with police during a psychotic break at his mother’s house in July. The footage is among the first few critical-incident videos released by the department since adopting a policy of publishing body camera footage from officer-involved shootings that end in death. To a video, they are heartbreaking and heart-pounding, providing an intimate look at the life and death dramas behind LA’s crime stats.

It started with a 9-1-1 call on July 6.

“I need somebody quickly. The police and ambulance, whatever. My son’s having a psychotic break. He has guns in the house. So I am really worried. Really worried. He thinks I am conspiring against him. He knocked the phone out of my hand the last time I called 9-1-1,” Honeycutt’s mother frantically tells a dispatcher. “I don’t know what’s going on. He’s hallucinating. I already called the mental health hospital, and they said if he becomes aggressive, which he just did to call 9-1-1 and tell them that he has guns in the house...You need to hurry because I am afraid he’s going to pull a gun on himself.”

Moments later the police are standing outside Honeycutt’s home on the 4900 block of Tyrone Avenue at 5 p.m. Honeycutt’s frantic mother is counting on the police to save her son from himself.

“He’s got the gun out now. He’s holding it in his hand sitting on the bed,” she tells officers. “He’s a good kid.”

Honeycutt was a native of the San Fernando Valley. A graduate of Sylmar High School, Honeycutt was a standout basketball player at UCLA before heading to the NBA to play for the Sacramento Kings.

“He was always very upbeat and had a great disposition about him,” Ben Howland, Honeycutt’s coach with the Bruins told the Los Angeles Times. Honeycutt was the team barber, joking that he would one day open a salon called “Honeycutts.”

His career took him to play in Russia, where he felt isolated and strove for a return to the NBA after winning a championship and dominating an all-star game in Europe. But the young man who returned home just months before his death was changed from upbeat kid with big plans.

“To be honest with you, he’s a professional basketball player that just came back from overseas. And he was sucking laughing gas for six months... I think it scrambled his brain,” his mother tells police as Honeycutt sits in his bedroom gripping a handgun.

The responding officers try to find a way to get through to Honeycutt before someone gets hurt. They peered around the corner of the house to Honeycutt’s bedroom. The called him on his cellphone and attempted to break through the haze of hallucinations.

“Hey Tyler, I'm the cat that’s outside. I have been waving at you, trying to talk to you. Right now, you’re not in trouble,” an officer says in the video. “All right. You haven’t committed a crime as of yet. OK? I’m trying to get you out of here as peaceful as possible. Is there any way you can help me out with that?”

Throughout the call, the officer keeps trying to get through to Honeycutt. He mentions the body cameras to reassure Honeycutt that he’ll be safe if he surrenders.

“If you just put your hand, your your gun down and come out...dude, there’s camera crews out here. We got cameras. You are safe...we just want to go home to our mammas, too. You know what I mean?” he says. “You’re making a lot of people nervous. You keep walking around there with that gun.”

Honeycutt appears to hang up on the officers. Soon after, he fires his gun through the bedroom window, striking the wall inches from an officer, who shoots back. Honeycutt never spoke with anyone again. The standoff ended nearly 12 hours later when officers entered the bedroom to find Honeycutt dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the coming months, police officials and a civilian oversight board will analyze the video to determine if responding officers handled it appropriately. Footage from Honeycutt’s final moments and its aftermath will remain on the LAPD’s Youtube channel, an exhibition of the anguish behind LA’s crime stats.

Editor's note: This video contains graphic language and footage:

Photo courtesy of the LAPD.