Even for someone who writes a lot about police brutality, this story is shocking (not surprising, but appalling). Lee County jail officers tied a man to a chair, put a hood over his head and sprayed him with pepper spray over and over again, resulting in his death. And even though the coroner ruled it a homicide, the officers have faced no consequences.
The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrong doing.
The man had mental problems and was off his medication. The jail was informed of this and decided to abuse him rather than get him treatment:
“I was shocked. This was something out of a horror movie,” says Joyce Christie. She said her husband was depressed and was showing signs of erratic behavior a few days before leaving for Florida.
She called authorities and pleaded with them to take her husband to a hospital and be given his medications. Instead, he was taken to jail for disorderly intoxication.
The family has filed suit, which they will likely win. But paying out money is not enough here. The people who did this are still on the job and thus still a threat to every other person in the area.
19 comments
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Ellie
December 27, 2011 at 10:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t know why the people in that county are not rising up. If they can kill this guy without consequences, nobody is safe. Don’t people realize that?
Didaktylos
December 27, 2011 at 11:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Your local police are armed and dangerous.”
Michael Heath
December 27, 2011 at 11:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I ran a search at the county paper of record, The Fort Myers News-Press using the terms: Christie “pepper spray”, here are all the results: http://search.news-press.com/sp?aff=1100&skin=&keywords=christie%20%22pepper%20spray%22. Unfortunately results are behind a pay wall besides a one sentence abstract.
The medical examiner found Mr. Christie died of cardiac arrest because of being pepper sprayed while restrained.
According to the same news source:
Aquaria
December 27, 2011 at 11:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Floridians being upset about an inmate? Please. This is the state that passes out barf bags to watch its state-sponsored assassinations because their execution device has caused several people to catch on fire, and the locals do fuck all to stop it.
http://www.sptimes.com/News/92599/news_pf/State/The_story_of_Old_Spar.shtml
Florida is only .000001% less bloodthirsty than Texas.
Marcus Ranum
December 27, 2011 at 11:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…they were just giving him his vegetables.
This is why it’s always the cops that are the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
d cwilson
December 27, 2011 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder if any of those sherif’s deputies received training in
tortureenhanced interogation from the Blackwater/Cheney School of Prisoner Handling.schism
December 27, 2011 at 11:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If they can kill this guy without consequences, nobody is safe. Don’t people realize that?
The general assumption is that only those people are adversely affected by police brutality, and those people, of course, deserve it on account of not bearing the right tribal markers.
kevinlarkin
December 27, 2011 at 1:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Few police departments in this country are trained or willing to treat someone with a mental illness as anything other than a criminal.
plutosdad
December 27, 2011 at 1:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, now they are torturing people to death.
Pierce R. Butler
December 27, 2011 at 3:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They’re just trying to discourage people from committing “suicide by cop”.
It’s all for the public good, you see.
hunter
December 27, 2011 at 5:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I guess pepper spray is the new taser.
organon
December 27, 2011 at 9:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would offer that Florida is not remotely one homogeneous state. There are radically different populations depending on what part of the state. In the Southeast (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach counties) these are very metropolitan areas composed of diverse cultures, with an overall outlook very different from most other parts of the state. It is usually SE Florida, and a few other smaller areas in the state, that provide a high degree of tax funding for the rest of the state, and only part of those tax dollars make it back to those counties. So those more metropolitan areas are supporting (a form of welfare) the majority of the state, which is more rural (and racist). Those areas vote overwhelmingly for politicians (such as RScott) on the basis of getting someone who will make everyone pay their way. SE Florida values education to an overwhelmingly higher degree than most of the state, and yet in favor of those other areas of the state, education gets cut ever further. This year it is reported that Scott plans to push the Perry education plan through the State, but Perry’s pure plan, not the severely compromised one in Texas. Those who see cuts see it as a victory in the war on those who receive govt. support. It never enters their mind how overwhelmingly SE Florida (and a few other much smaller areas) funds their part of the State. If they believed what they say, then insist that tax money go back to counties proportionately, in which case SE Florida (and others) would have far more to invest in the education of its constituency. As far as police/swat activities, they are happening all over the country. Some I’ve learned about through others have not been written about at all. It is the country at large that needs to speak up, as it is a country-wide issue. John Whitehead has noted a number of them, but only a fraction of those happening. BTW, in some of those rural areas, any “outsiders” who wander in are not looked upon favorably. There appear to be a long list of abuses in these areas, including counties who look upon those they lock up as being a source of funds for the county. There are other states, from what I understand, with very similar circumstances. It’s easy to declare the citizens of a state as being this or that. But that assumes everyone is alike. And nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to Florida. Or so it seems to me. There are also rational persons in Texas, and otherwise would have resulted in his whole education plan being forced on the state. Look at what law enforcement agencies around the state are getting away with, and it becomes very clear how correct John Whitehead is about the nation being a police state for a decade now. With various legislation going through, it could be with us for decades to come, and get worse, not better. Again, if citizens do not learn their constitutional rights and speak out, it will allow it to progress all the faster.
mcmillan
December 27, 2011 at 11:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ve started to get a little jaded by a lot of the examples of police abuse, but this managed to shock me. Not so much what happened, which while horrifying, doesn’t seem too far out of the range of human behavior that we sometimes hear about. But that the attorney actually seems to have cleared the office of wrong doing went beyond what I expected people were capable of accepting.
organon
December 28, 2011 at 1:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unfortunately, there are a lot of those cases. I think most people are mostly unaware. Often when bringing these things up, also, some rationalize why it happened. Many seem to have an inherent need to believe law enforcement personnel don’t do these kinds of things. Or that while tragic, law enforcement needs these “tools.” These sometimes happen in very poor neighborhoods where even independent sources do not learn about them. The case here would have shocked me months ago, but not any more. It makes it no less sad. Just not so shocking. So very unfortunately.
Pinky
December 28, 2011 at 2:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It is time to get the police back under civilian control no matter what the method.
@ #8
That may be true, but I don’t think it applies to this case. The victim was secured to a chair naked with a bag over his head as police tortured and killed him.
The truth in this situation is:
Few police departments in this country are trained or willing to understand a person who is restrained is not a threat. Torturing and killing a person who is not a threat is a.) Terrorism b.) Thinking you are above the law c.) Being a brutal, sadistic asshole or d.) All the above.
The reasons black youth sometimes lack the “Golly gee whiz, the police are here to help us” attitude is sinking into my thick head.
dingojack
December 28, 2011 at 2:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Who knew Henry “Roscoe” Rules* moved from Chino to Ft. Myers to help the local cops with thier training?
:\ Dingo
—–
* ‘To describe just how mean Roscoe Rules is, one of the rumors fellow officers invented was that he “handed out towels in the showers at Auschwitz”‘. – The Choirboys (Novel). Wikipedia
birgerjohansson
December 28, 2011 at 9:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is there any way SE Florida could break away from the rest of the state and become a state of its own? If people knew how little they get back as a region from the state tax, they might be willing to leave Tallahasse behind…politically as well as culturally.
Strategically Shaved Monkey
December 28, 2011 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was looking for a good job where I could freely kill Floridians. This is patently false advertising & I’m gonna have to sue one of your many asses off.
Yours sincerely,
Disappointed
Tony
December 30, 2011 at 7:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Strategically Shaved Monkey:
-your humor here escapes me. A man was killed by law enforcement officials and you joke about it?