Family says Ohio jail guards stood by as restrained man who later died lost consciousness
The family of a man who died after being restrained in an Ohio jail said Monday that the deputies who piled on him stood by for several minutes without trying to save his life after he became unresponsive.
Attorneys for the family said the deputies and jail medical staff members who looked on as Christian Black sat slumped in a restraint chair should be criminally charged in his death.
“There was no sense of urgency,” said his father, Kenya Black. “You could clearly see he was unconscious.”
Black, 25, of Zanesville, died on March 26, two days after he was taken from the Montgomery County jail to a hospital in Dayton. He was in the jail after police said he crashed a stolen car.
The county coroner’s office said last week that Black likely died from positional asphyxia, which happens when the chest can’t expand, starving the body of oxygen. His death, which is still under investigation, was ruled a homicide by the coroner.
Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck said on Thursday after the coroner’s report was released that 10 employees had been put on paid administrative leave. The sheriff called it a procedural step, adding it wasn’t an indication of any wrongdoing.
A message seeking comment Monday from the sheriff’s office was not immediately returned.
Video from inside the jail released Monday by the family and its attorneys showed Black inside a cell, yelling and repeatedly banging his fist and head against a glass door.
Nine deputies gathered outside the cell, with some rushing in and bringing him to the ground. They pinned Black to the floor and put handcuffs on him before wrestling him into a restraint chair, the video showed.
Black’s head flopped and slumped while he was in the restraint chair, which law enforcement agencies sometimes use to secure combative people who are in custody.
The video showed that jail staff checked Black’s eyes, took his blood pressure and rubbed his chest while he was unresponsive in the chair. About nine minutes passed between the time he was put in the chair and when the jail staff started CPR, the family’s attorneys said.
“He’s dead because of how they handled him,” said Michael Wright, one of the attorneys. “No one did anything to help.”