According to a complaint filed on Friday, four Missouri prison guards were charged with murder and a fifth with accessory to involuntary manslaughter in the December death of a Black man who died while being held in a correctional facility after being pepper sprayed, having his face covered with a mask, and being placed in a position that caused him to suffocate.
In a press release from Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson, a group of guards comprising the Department of Corrections Emergency Response Team was searching one of the housing units on December 8, 2023, for contraband when Othel Moore Jr., 38, was pepper sprayed twice and placed in a spit hood, leg wrap, and restraint chair.
After that, Moore was transferred to a different apartment building and given a 30-minute break in a chair, wrap, and the hood.
Thompson stated he was told by several persons that he was having trouble breathing. After being transferred to a hospital wing, Moore was eventually declared deceased.
According to Thompson, Moore’s death was officially recorded as a homicide after the medical examiner determined that his cause of death was positional asphyxiation. He attested that the incidents were recorded on the prison’s security footage.
“After sitting down and reviewing all evidence, the dozens and dozens of interviews, all the reports, we determined that charges were appropriate,” Thompson stated.
According to Andrew Stroth, a family lawyer for Moore, Moore had blood leaking from his nose and ears.
“There’s a system, pattern and practice of racist and unconstitutional abuse in the Missouri Department of Corrections, and especially within the Jefferson City Correction Center,” Stroth stated. “It’s George Floyd 3.0 in a prison.”
According to the complaint, there are one count of second-degree murder and one count of accessory to second-degree assault against each of Justin Leggins, Jacob Case, Aaron Brown, and Gregory Varner. Bryanne Bradshaw, a fifth guard, faces a single count of accessory to involuntary manslaughter.
According to the charging complaint, Moore was pepper-sprayed by Leggins and Case, and Brown covered his face with a mask. Moore asphyxiated as a result of the posture Varner and Bradshaw left him in, according to the complaint.
According to Thompson, anyone convicted of felony murder might spend anywhere from 10 to 30 years behind bars. Attorneys for Moore’s mother and sister sued the Department of Corrections as well as the officers on Friday.
In a copy of the lawsuit released, the Moore family’s attorneys characterized the Corrections Emergency Response Team as “a group that uses coercive measures to brutalize, intimidate and threaten inmates”.
“This attack on Othel Moore, Jr. was not an isolated occurrence, but rather the manifestation of a barbarous pattern and practice, fostered by the highest-ranking members of the Missouri Department of Corrections,” lawyers stated.
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Moore passed while in a restraint device intended to keep him and others safe, according to a statement issued by the Missouri Department of Corrections on Friday. The department has since stopped utilizing the system.
Following the criminal investigation and its own internal inquiry, the prisons department also said that ten of the individuals engaged in the incident “are no longer employed by the department or its contractors.”
The department stated that it “will not tolerate behaviors or conditions that endanger the wellbeing of Missourians working or living in our facilities. The department has begun implementing body-worn cameras in restrictive-housing units at maximum-security facilities, starting with Jefferson City Correctional Center, to bolster both security and accountability.”
Othel Moore’s sister Oriel Moore noted that her family’s grief was compounded by the fact that they were never able to see Othel Moore outside of prison after his early years.
“He won’t get to live his life, he doesn’t even know what it is to be a grown man because he’s been in there since he was a kid,” Moore stated. “He had plans. He wanted to be a productive member of society. He matters. His life matters.”
