A video being kept from the public shows a naked inmate with a bag over his head being beaten and held down by correction officers until he stops breathing, according to his lawyer.
Attorney Ron Murphy says the video shows the moments leading up to the March 2018 death of 31-year-old J'Allen Jones, an inmate at Garner Correctional in Newton, Connecticut.
Jones' family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state Department of Correction staff members involved in the alleged beating. However, the state is trying to get the case dismissed, asserting that the correction officers' use of force was justified. The state also claims that officers were unaware of Jones' medical condition. According to an autopsy, cardiovascular disease was a factor in Jones' death.
On Friday (October 4), Murphy filed a motion to unseal the video of the alleged beating, which he compared to George Floyd's death, per CT Insider.
“The events in the video are as disturbing as the events in the video of George Floyd’s death,” Murphy wrote in the motion.
“But in some ways, the video of J’Allen’s death is worse as the defendants struck J’Allen repeatedly, violently threw him down twice, sprayed him twice directly in the face with pepper spray while his face was covered by a safety veil — all while J’Allen was naked, handcuffed behind his back, shackled at his ankles, hogtied, and having a schizophrenic episode in the psych ward of a Connecticut prison,” he continued.
“Moreover, the defendants caused J’Allen to stop breathing, become unconscious, and then delayed calling 911 or starting CPR by seven minutes after it was apparent he had stopped breathing,” the lawyer added.
Murphy noted that the Attorney General's Office submitted the video as an exhibit in the case and cited the recording multiple times in legal documents.
“Exhibit A must now be considered a judicial document immediately accessible to the public,” Murphy wrote.
Murphy said the state doesn't want to make the video public because authorities believe "releasing the video would pose a safety and security concern to the Department of Corrections because the general public would be ‘inflamed’ and ‘incensed’ by the video showing J’Allen’s death."
The attorney also noted that "Jones was Black and eight of the nine defendants are white.” Murphy maintains that Jones didn't “hit or threaten any of the defendants involved in his death.”
The state has until October 25 to file a response to Murphy's motion to unseal the video.
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