A Connecticut inmate was stripped, tied up and had his faced covered with an irritant-soaked bag as correction officers beat him before his last breaths.
J’Allen Jones, 32, died in 2018 at the psychiatric ward of Garner Correctional Institution in Newton while having a mental breakdown, according to court documents shared with DailyMail.com.
Jones’ girlfriend, Lynnette Richardson and mother, Jessica Jones, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Department of Correction later that year, claiming that their staff are to blame for the death of their loved one.
This horrifying footage should be publicly released, according to attorney Ron Murphy, who is fighting to shed light on the situation as state lawyers try to get the case dismissed.
‘The events in the video are as disturbing as the events in the video of George Floyd’s death,’ Murphy wrote in a motion presented on Friday.
Correction officers wheeled J’Allen Jones out of his cell after beating him
Jones was stripped and then pepper sprayed and restrained until unconscious
Jones was diagnosed with schizophrenia and his cause of death was linked to underlying heart disease
In his argument to get this video released, he said that the moment the video – referred to as ‘Exhibit A’ – was filed with the court, it should have been open to the public.
Murphy and Paul Spinella are the two lawyers calling for the protective order sealing the video to be lifted.
The motion described the graphic beating, stating Jones was repeatedly hit, thrown to the ground and pepper sprayed in his vulnerable and constrained state. Jones was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Murphy said the staff seen in the video ‘engaged in excessive force, which caused J’Allen to become unconscious, and then engaged in deliberate indifference to J’Allen’s obvious and serious medical needs.’
Correction officers were recorded as they tied Jones up and held him down
Correction officers came into Jones’ cell for an unprompted strip search, according to court documents
He alleged the staff’s actions caused Jones’ untimely death.
‘There’s no evidence to show that (the staff) actually knew Mr. Jones suffered from a medical condition,’ Assistant Attorney General Janelle Medeiros told the judge on Friday, as reported by Newstimes.
Murphy outlined the video, explaining that the video shows three officers approaching Jones without any particular reason. Other officers joined as they ordered the inmate be strip searched.
Jones said he was too tired to be searched and started ‘chanting non-sensical words’, which the officers took as failure to comply – which is when the forcefulness began.
There are eight correction officers and one nurse named in a lawsuit pursued by Jones’ mother and girlfriend
Correction officers forced Jones onto his bed
In the incident report done by the Department of Correction, it is documented that Jones received two injections from a nurse to calm him down, as he ‘continued to be resistive.’
This document also alleges that Jones tried to grab, bit and spit at officers.
The attorney said that during the video, Jones never tried to strike back at the officers. He is heard coughing and wheezing for air in the video.
Four large officers used their knees and palms to hold Jones down for over eight minutes until his final ‘visible voluntary movement’, Murphy said.
They took Jones out of his cell in a wheelchair to take him to another. Officers called for him to be medically evaluated and he was unresponsive.
Outside of Garner Correctional Institution where the recorded incident occurred
Nurses did not perform CPR or call an ambulance until seven minutes after we went unconscious.
An investigation done by the Department of Correction revealed staff waited too long to perform life-saving measures on Jones, CTpost reported.
Jones was pronounced dead after he was taken to the hospital. His death was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner, according to court documents.
He was serving a 10-year sentence for charges including first-degree robbery. according to The Newtown Bee.
His cause of death was reported as ‘sudden death during strangle and restraint with chest compression and pepper spray exposure in person with hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.’
Jones was being held in the psych wing of the correction institution
Jones’ mother and Richardson filed the lawsuit against the eight correction officers and the nurse involved in the recorded incident. It is scheduled for trial in February 2025.
Murphy pointed out that eight of the nine defendants are white.
In another effort to get rid of this lawsuit completely, Medeiros added that even though Jones died in Newtown, he was a Bristol resident.
She claimed the Newtown-area court ‘did not have jurisdiction’ to make Richardson the lead plaintiff of the case.
