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An Alabama man, who died in police custody, may have frozen to death after being restrained in a walk-in freezer for hours, says a lawsuit.

Anthony Mitchell, 33, was arrested in January for allegedly firing a gun during a welfare check requested by his family because of his mental health.

He was jailed at Walker County Jail in Jasper, Alabama from where he was driven to a medical facility.

Records cited in the suit suggest he died of hypothermia on 26 January.

"This is one of the most appalling cases of jail abuse the country has seen," his lawyers said in the suit, which was filed against the sheriff's office and the jail's medical and corrections personnel.

The sheriff's office did not respond to �鶹Լ��'s request for comment.

The lawsuit includes a video clip of the incident, which the lawyers say came from a corrections officer who recorded surveillance footage from the jail on a mobile phone.

The footage appears to show Mr Mitchell's limp and unconscious body being carried to a police vehicle, despite the sheriff's office previously saying he was "alert and conscious when he left the facility and arrived at the hospital".

According to records, his body temperature was 72F (22C) upon arrival. A physician tried to resuscitate him for three hours and then pronounced him dead.

"I am not sure what circumstances the patient was held in incarceration but it is difficult to understand a rectal temperature of 72 degree Fahrenheit while someone is incarcerated in jail," the physician wrote in medical records included in the lawsuit.

"I do not know if he could have been exposed to a cold environment. I do believe that hypothermia was the ultimate cause of his death," he added.

Mitchell was "likely" placed in a restraint chair in the jail kitchen's walk-in freezer or another cold environment and left there for hours on the night of 25 January as a form of punishment, according to the suit.

Medical personnel and officers failed to summon an ambulance or get Mitchell medical treatment for five hours, the suit alleges.

His family says jail officials delayed medical treatment and tried to cover up his abuse.

"While Tony languished naked and dying of hypothermia in the early morning hours of January 26 and his chances for survival trickled away, numerous corrections officers and medical staff wandered over to his open cell door to spectate and be entertained by his condition," his mother's lawyers said.

The officer who recorded the footage, Karen Kelly, was fired after sharing the video.

She has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Walker County Sheriff's office, claiming she was let go in retaliation for making the footage public.

Ms Kelly was not at the jail on the night of the incident, but heard rumours about it when she came back to work and searched through surveillance footage to find the clip, according to her lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges Mr Mitchell was in a "bare holding cell that had no toilet or bed" and "had no clothing other than some paper-thin material".

"Most of the time, Mitchell was naked in that cell," the suit said. An autopsy has not yet been completed.

Over a million people in US jails and prisons have mental health issues. Previous investigations have found inmates suffering mental health problems are more likely than others to be subject to abuse.