AG weighs reopening jail-restraint death case

In response to calls from the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP and Black lawmakers, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office said it is willing to review the prior administration’s investigation of the death of Tory Sanders, a Tennessee man who died in 2017 after officers restrained him in jail in Mississippi County.

In a news conference earlier this month, Nimrod Chapel Jr., an attorney and president of the NAACP in Missouri, called on Mississippi County Prosecutor Darren Cann to bring charges against former Mississippi County Sheriff Cory Hutcheson and other law enforcement officials in Sanders’ death.

Sanders’ mother, Quinta Sanders, alleges in a wrongful-death suit against Hutcheson and other law enforcement officials that, prior to her son’s death, Hutcheson pressed his knee to his neck until he passed out.

Her attorney and civil rights leaders have compared Sanders’ death to that of George Floyd, who died on May 25 after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin used the same kind of restraint method on him.

Chauvin now faces murder and manslaughter charges for pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Three other Minneapolis officers also have been charged in Floyd’s death, which was captured on video and resulted in widespread protests around the world.

Tory Sanders’ death certificate lists his cause of death as “probable excited delirium syndrome,” and the manner of death is listed as a homicide.

Cann recently told the Associated Press that in 2017, a conflict of interest in his office led him to hand the case over to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, then led by Josh Hawley, now a U.S. Senator. Ultimately, Hawley declined to file charges against Hutcheson.

Hutcheson resigned from office in 2018 after pleading guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and identity theft in an unrelated case.

In 2019, Eric Schmitt became the state’s new attorney general. A spokesman for his office said the office is willing to take a new look at whether to reopen the case.

In a statement, Schmitt spokesman Chris Nuelle said officials in the Attorney General’s office believe the previous administration, as well as federal authorities, investigated Sanders’ death thoroughly and found there wasn’t enough evidence to bring criminal charges against Hutcheson.

“However, this administration is committed to thoroughly reviewing all existing and any new evidence to determine whether to reopen the matter,” he said.

Schmitt also has spoken about the case with Chapel, who said he came away from the conversation encouraged.

“I was really heartened to know that they were going to look into it,” he said, adding: “Of course, justice delayed is justice denied.”

Chapel said if Schmitt declines to prosecute the case, he’d like to see him call for a federal prosecution.

“There’s a renewed spirit for justice,” he said. “If we don’t get justice for Miss Sanders now, I’m not sure we ever will.”

Kansas City attorney Samuel Wendt of the Wendt Law Firm is representing Quinta Sanders in the civil suit she filed in November 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. She is the administrator of her son’s estate and also filed the suit on behalf of her son’s survivors, including his father, wife and children.

When Wendt learned of Floyd’s death, Sanders immediately came to his mind, he said. The two cases share a number of similarities, he said, but there’s one key difference.

“Tory Sanders wasn’t being detained or arrested for anything illegal,” Wendt said. “He was having a mental break, he was having a medical issue, and ultimately it cost him his life.”

Quinta Sanders is suing Mississippi County, the city of Charleston and its police officers, Hutcheson, and other officers at the jail, alleging civil rights violations, false imprisonment and wrongful death.

Her son, who was 28, ended up in Charleston after getting lost while driving from his home in Nashville, Tennessee, to Memphis, according to his mother’s lawsuit.

The suit outlines the approximately nine hours he was held at the Mississippi County Detention Center after police encountered him a Charleston gas station on the morning of May 5, 2017. He told police then he was off his medications, and he asked them for help and for a mental evaluation, according to the suit.

After he was taken to the jail, a counselor evaluated him and found he was not a danger to himself or others. Instead of discharging him, however, officers continued to hold Sanders in a cell, according to the suit.

Through the course of the day, Sanders became increasingly aggravated and belligerent, the suit alleged. The counselor returned, found Sanders was in acute psychiatric crisis and prepared paperwork needed to place him on a 96-hour hold for a mental health evaluation and treatment.

After the second evaluation, officers and jailers increasingly used force against Sanders, from shocking him multiple times with a Taser to pepper-spraying him in his cell, the suit alleged. Ultimately, they rushed into his cell and started an altercation that culminated in Hutcheson pressing his knee to Sanders’ neck until Sanders passed out, the suit alleged.

The suit also alleged the officers failed to immediately take measures to save Sanders’ life. He later was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The parties are still in the discovery phase of the case, Wendt said, but a planned mediation session is set for July 27.

Hutcheson is being represented in the civil suit by Peter Dunne of Pitzer Snodgrass in St. Louis. He declined to comment on the pending case.

The case is Sanders v. Missouri County, Missouri et al., 1:18-cv-00269.