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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.”
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