Suicidal KC-area man ‘tased,’ hit by deputy in ambulance, on video. ‘Really sickening’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Video shows deputies hit and punch Donald Bellos while restrained.
- A lawsuit alleges assault, negligence and Sunshine Law violations.
- Deputy Jacob Sebren was fired; Deputy Hope Hearn was suspended.
Nearly three weeks after her family called 911 about her suicidal father, Brooke Bellos sat in her SUV watching body camera footage she requested from the day they asked for help.
On her laptop screen, she could see two Benton County Sheriff’s deputies inside the ambulance with her father and first responders on April 1. She saw her father — who appeared disoriented and asking what was going on — get hit with a stun gun and punched as he was restrained on a gurney.
“We didn’t know anything that had happened in the ambulance,” said Bellos, 26, of Lee’s Summit. “I wanted the body cam because I just wanted to show how these people had treated me, my grandma, my brother.”
“I watched about eight minutes and almost threw up because of how they could treat a human being like this. That’s just not what we expected at all. ... It was someone who just needed help. It was really sickening.”
The Bellos family, through their Kansas City attorney Tom Porto, filed a lawsuit late last month alleging assault, medical negligence and Sunshine Law violations.
Named as defendants are the two deputies involved that day, Jacob Sebren and Hope Hearn along with Undersheriff Kelly Lowe, the Warsaw-Lincoln Ambulance District and Paramedic Kendra Zeiset.
“Defendants Sebren and Hearn purposefully, intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, unlawfully, with malice, and without justification, harmfully used more force than was reasonably necessary to seek compliance from Plaintiff Donald Bellos while strapped to a gurney,” the lawsuit said.
His family was outside the ambulance as the incident was going on inside. An interaction they had with deputies when they came out, and told them to leave, has been viewed more than 2.7 million times on TikTok.
In a news release about the case, the law firm said that when Donald Bellos, 47 at the time, was inside the ambulance, “his disoriented movements after being stuck with an intravenous needle were treated with aggression and hostility.”
“Deputy Jacob Sebren placed him in a jaw hold, tased Bellos in the stomach, punched him in the jaw and proceeded to choke him until paramedic Kendra Zeiset warned, ‘Don’t make him pass out,’” the release said.
“Deputy Sebren tased the restrained patient a third time, stating, ‘Whoops, that one was an accident.’”
Missouri deputies seen on video
Sebren was fired for his actions that first day of April, Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox confirmed. But Brooke Bellos said she believes that Hearn should be as well. Bellos and her family also want the sheriff’s department to implement additional training involving mental health.
After his department conducted a “full investigation,” Knox said, Hearn was suspended and put on probation. She also received additional training.
Knox said in a phone interview that “some of the allegations” in the litigation are “baseless and false and that’ll come out in the lawsuit.” He specifically pointed to allegations that the undersheriff did anything wrong in the situation.
The sheriff also said that “Detective Hearn did not assault that man that I can see in any of the videos.”
“What she was trying to do is keep his legs down,” Knox said. “She got the s--t kicked out of her.”
But, the sheriff said, she was “disrespectful” and had a “terrible attitude” during the call, “and that’s not her.” He said he had Hearn watch the footage from that day, and she was remorseful.
“She was sick over it,” Knox said. “She still is.”
Sebren, on the other hand, was “completely outside of our policies and procedures, and that’s why he’s terminated.”
Knox also said multiple times that he doesn’t condone “either one of the actions of my deputies” that day, and “they’re not trained that way.”
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Over the years, he said, his department has gone to hundreds of similar mental health crisis calls.
“And we get them all right,” he said. “Just that one they didn’t get right.
“We don’t condone it. That’s not how we operate.”
Lee’s Summit man sought help in Benton County
Donald Bellos, also of Lee’s Summit, was in Benton County April 1 at family land when relatives tried to get him to seek help for his suicidal thoughts.
A few days before, Brooke Bellos said, her father told his mother and wife that “he didn’t want to be here anymore.” His sister, Crystal, took her own life in 2022 which Bellos said her father has struggled with. Then a cousin died and another relative soon after. In addition, his two dogs passed away.
“So it was like the string of events sent him into a downward spiral,” she said. And after 20 years of sobriety, Brooke Bellos said, he did “start using again.”
The family was so concerned, she said, they applied for — and received — a 96-hour psychiatric hold in Jackson County. And then they went to Benton County to see if he was at the family land.
“When we got there, we tried to talk to him,” Brooke Bellos said. “He just kept saying he couldn’t do it anymore, and so we called 911 because we had the 96-hour hold already approved, and we just wanted him to get help.”
The family didn’t know what to do at that point, she said. Her father wouldn’t go with them to get help.
Emergency dispatchers eventually put Brooke’s grandmother on a call with Deputy Hearn.
“Hearn told us suicide wasn’t illegal,” Brooke Bellos said. “ ... We told her he’s a danger to others and himself.”
At one point, she said, her grandmother asked Hearn if they should “just call back” when he hurt himself or someone else.
“And then Hearn pretty much said, ‘Yeah,’” Brooke Bellos said. “And my grandma said, ‘Okay.’”
“And then the detective hung up.”
A second 911 call
The family went down the street to talk a friend of Donald Bellos’ and asked him to check on their dad and son.
About 30 minutes later, Brooke Bellos said, they went back to her dad’s camper and knocked on the door.
“We could hear him gagging inside, like about to throw up,” she said. “He opened the door and said that either he was going to be dead in 10 minutes or there needs to be an ambulance, like, ‘Call an ambulance, I’m going to be dead in 10 minutes.’”
Her father, she said, was “visibly white” and they “couldn’t really make sense of what he was saying.”
“So we had him sit on a picnic table outside, and he was just kind of like saying, ‘Please take me, like I’m ready to go,’” Brooke Bellos said. “And his eyes we’re moving all around. He wouldn’t tell us what he took, so my grandma called 911 again, and then they sent them out.”
The family took Donald to the front gates to meet the ambulance.
“It felt reassuring we were going to get help,” Brooke Bellos said. “ ... We did what we thought (was) everything we could.
“We called 911. You know, in emergencies that’s what you’re supposed to do. And to us it was an emergency, either for other people or just him. We didn’t want to watch our dad die.”
As first responders worked to get Donald Bellos into the ambulance, his mother could be seen on the body camera footage by his side, reassuring him.
“... They’re going to help you,” she said. “And you’re going to be OK.”
But everything “went downhill from there,” Brooke Bellos said.
At one point, she said, the family could hear “screams” coming from inside the ambulance and her dad say “Help me,” multiple times.
“The ambulance would shake back and forth," Brooke Bellos said. “We had no clue that any of this was happening. And then they came out and screamed at us, saying that he was going to jail, and we just, we couldn’t comprehend or understand what was happening.”
‘Response itself nearly killed him’
Alleged mistreatment continued, the law firm’s release said, as the Lee’s Summit man was transported to the hospital.
“Bellos was given three separate 100mg doses of ketamine, despite previously telling emergency responders he had taken ketamine,” the release said. “Internal ambulance audio captured emergency responders joking about ‘k-holing’ the patient. The ketamine administration resulted in acute chemical toxicity and an acute kidney injury.”
The suit described the impact that allegedly caused.
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendant Zeiset and Defendant Warsaw Lincoln Ambulance District, Plaintiff Donald Bellos suffered severe, progressive, and permanent injuries including, but not limited to, an acute kidney injury requiring forced diuresis for four consecutive days to prevent organ failure,” the suit alleges.
“As well as potential future renal damage, psychological fear and trauma, emotional and mental anguish, distress, humiliation, fear, and loss of enjoyments of life; medical bills and lost income.
Porto, the attorney for the family, said first responders failed Bellos and his family.
“We have seen too many cases where a family calls for help during a mental health crisis and the person in crisis is treated like a criminal,” Porto said, in the release about the lawsuit. “Donald Bellos needed an immediate medical response because his life was in danger. Instead, the response itself nearly killed him.”
“ ... They could have slowed down, used calm communication, asked his family what would help, or called someone trained in crisis intervention,” Porto said. “They could have treated him like a patient, but they chose not to.”
Brooke Bellos said her father has gotten treatment and is doing well. He didn’t remember anything from that day and has watched some of the footage.
It’s hard, Brooke Bellos said, to see how her father was treated. And to relive what she and her brother and grandmother had to endure.
“It’s not humane at all,” she said. “I don’t know if I just am ignorant to some things, but I believe everyone has empathy and just care for others, and I would think being in the position they’re in that they would, and they just made it more traumatic than it needed to be.
“Listening to the laughing and the joking afterward was very disheartening, because to us that was one of the worst days of our lives, and they’re making a joke out of it.”
The Star’s Robert A. Cronkleton contributed.
This story was originally published July 2, 2026 at 12:28 PM.
