The state of Connecticut has until Friday to answer calls to release a video showing the death of a Black man who died naked and bound by corrections officers at Garner Correctional Institution in 2018.
A lawyer representing the family has described the man’s death “as disturbing as” and “in some ways…worse” than George Floyd’s.
A 52-minute video capturing the final moments of J’Allen Jones’ life as correctional officers hold Jones, naked and bound, with a spit mask or sack covering his head, down onto a bed during a strip search has been sealed through a protective order since 2019.
Attorney Ron Murphy, a lawyer representing Jones’ family, filed a motion this month requesting that the court make the tape “accessible to the public.”
“The events in the video are as disturbing as the events in the video of George Floyd’s death. But in some ways, the video of J’Allen’s death is worse,” Murphy wrote in the motion.
“The defendants struck J’Allen repeatedly, violently threw him down twice, sprayed him twice directly in the face with pepper spray while his face was covered by a safety veil — all while J’Allen (Jones) was naked, handcuffed behind his back, shackled at his ankles, hogtied, and having a schizophrenic episode in the psych ward of a Connecticut prison,” Murphy wrote.
Jones was 31 years old when he died in Connecticut Department of Corrections custody on March 25, 2018, as a result of “sudden death during struggle and restraint with chest compression and pepper spray exposure in person with hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” according to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. James Gill.
Gill ruled Jones’ manner of death a homicide, but in 2019, State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky said an investigation “determined that the circumstances of … Mr. Jones’ death are not criminal in nature.”
Over the last six years, Jones’ former partner and the administrator of his estate, Lynnette Richardson, and Jones’ mother, Jessica Jones, have been fighting for damages in a wrongful death lawsuit.
Lawyers representing Jones’ family in the seven-count case against nine DOC employees argue that the “Defendants killed (Jones) through a combination of physical beatings, prolonged exposure to the chemical agent, pepper spray …. use of a dangerous prone restraint technique known to be potentially lethal, and a failure to respond to (Jones’) medical needs,” according to court documents.
They claim that after Jones became unconscious, “the Defendants waited 7 minutes and 16 seconds before starting lifesaving measures.”
In 2020, George Floyd’s death invoked a national reckoning when a bystander’s video captured Floyd’s final moments, crying “I can’t breathe,” as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.
In the motion, Murphy described the video of Jones’ death as “so disturbing that Captain Hartnett, the lead investigator for Department of Corrections, believes releasing the video would pose a safety and security concern to the Department of Corrections because the general public ‘would be’ ‘inflamed’ and ‘incensed’ by the video,” according to statements Murphy cited in Hartnett’s deposition.
Murphy also highlighted that Jones “was Black and eight of the nine defendants are white,” and that Jones never “hit or threatened any of the defendants involved in his death.”
According to a Sept. 20 court order, the state must file a response to motion by Friday.
In a motion for summary judgment filed with the Court in March, the Attorney’s General Office cited the video extensively in its rationale.
In the motion, the Attorney’s General Office that “Mr. Jones’s death was caused by a ‘very complex sequence of events,’ which the custody officers did not anticipate,” and that the DOC employees named in the case are “entitled to qualified immunity on all claims” brought by the plaintiffs.
In the filing, the Attorney’s General Office states that “the Defendants had no idea that Mr. Jones had any underlying heart disease, which was a contributing factor to his death,” and that “none of the Defendants actually appreciated or understood that Mr. Jones was in medical distress until he was likely already deceased.”
“The custody Defendants never sent medical away, ignored medical advice, or disregarded evidence informing them of a serious risk to Jones. Rather, throughout the incident they repeatedly sought out medical assistance and relied upon medical staff to determine if anything is wrong — which evinces concern and care for Mr. Jones — not indifference.”
The Attorney’s General office also said the defendant’s use of a safety veil, pepper spray and other “physical techniques to secure Mr. Jones,” are “common, authorized by policy, and trained to DOC officers as appropriate for use,” and the “Defendants could not possibly be actually aware that use of these tools …would pose a substantial risk of serious harm to a healthy young man.”
ACLU of Connecticut legal Director Dan Barrett said the organization believes “the public — especially lawmakers who are elected to represent the people of Connecticut — should have access to this video,” in a media statement last week.
“As the sole evidence of what happened to Mr. Jones at the hands of the Department of Correction, and as a court filing that has never been sealed, the public should have access to the video as guaranteed by state law and the First Amendment,” Barrett said. “It is imperative the people know what is being done in our names behind prison walls.”
Superior Court Judge Lisa Morgan rejected a request from the ACLU to obtain a copy of the video, writing in an Oct. 4 letter that the organization’s request “must be denied” “unless and until” the protective order sealing the evidence “is vacated or modified.”
In a petition to the court filed on Oct. 7, the ACLU argues that the video evidence “has never been sealed” and “could not be sealed.”
According to court documents, the protective order requires both parties to submit a joint request to have the video filed under seal before introducing or submitting the exhibit into evidence — the ACLU claims that never happened.
“The presiding judge’s denial decision concluded that the protective order in the case sealed the video, but it did not,” The ACLU petition states. “No party has moved to seal the video, and the Superior Court has never issued an order sealing it, meaning that the public’s access to the video is entirely unimpaired and should be immediately produced.”
In the same filing, the ACLU underscored the “strong public interest” in the video while arguing that “protective orders do not govern the public’s access to court records” and “strong standards tightly restrict limits on public access” to evidence filed with the court.
“We hope that the Appellate Court clarifies that the video has never been sealed, and that it cannot be sealed,” Barrett said.
In 2020, the Attorney General’s Office fought against a motion brought by the family’s lawyer to unseal the video. In their objection, the office argued that disclosing the tape to the public would “severely impair the safety and security of DOC correctional facilities” and “lead to significant media attention” and “extrajudicial statements that obviously would prejudice or otherwise influence prospective jurors,” which would “compromise the Defendants’ right to a fair trial.”
In a response filed with the court, lawyers representing Jones’ family argued that “The Defendants’ rationalizations for the protective order are a pretext to disguise the horrific treatment of mental health inmates.”
In the document, the plaintiffs said Jones “died as a result of this treatment” and that the video reveals “a glaring human rights violation that is all too common in the Connecticut Department of Corrections.”
“The horrific treatment of the vulnerable and large population of mental health inmates in Connecticut is a human rights issue. Anyone interested in prison reform and human rights have a right to view this video,” they said.
In a previous statement to the Courant, Murphy said Jones’ family is seeking “adequate compensation” for Jones’ son. However, Murphy said they also “want to make sure nothing like this ever happens again at the Department of Corrections.”
Screenshots from the 52-minute recording, which were included in an investigative report prepared by Capt. Robert Hartnett for the DOC in 2019, show Jones naked and bound, with a spit mask covering his head as correctional officers hold him down onto a bed during a strip search.
According to the report’s time-stamped descriptions of the video, “Jones appears to take a labored breath” at the 20-minute, 27-second mark — it is the last time the report makes note of Jones’ breathing.
At 22:03, the report describes correctional officers as “struggling” to hold Jones upright after receiving an order to stand Jones up from the bed.
At 23:15 an image captures Jones’ naked body as he is wheeled to a new cell. His head, still covered by a spit mask, lolls to the right.
At 24:47, the report says nurses begin assessing Jones. At 27:55 they begin CPR. The descriptions end at 51:45 when Jones departs from Garner in an ambulance.
Jones was serving a 10-year sentence for first-degree robbery. At the time of his death, Jones had been incarcerated for roughly three and a half years.
