“What that means is that he was suffocated to death,” attorney Michael Wright said during a Monday media briefing at his downtown Dayton law office following the coroner’s ruling last week that Black’s manner of death was homicide.
“What additional evidence do we need to make a change over at this jail?” Wright said. “This man was murdered in front of our eyes. Murdered.”
Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck has not immediately responded to a request for comment. He announced last week that 10 corrections officers involved, who were not identified, were placed on paid administrative leave.
“We are asking that they be arrested, they be indicted, and they be convicted for the murder of Christian Black,” Wright said.
Black was taken into custody March 23 after reportedly crashing a stolen vehicle on Interstate 70 in Englewood. He was taken to a local hospital and subsequently booked into the jail.
The sheriff’s office reported that Black was involved in a fight with jail staff early March 24 that led corrections officers to use force, including a Taser, to subdue him.
The video
Video provided by Black’s family attorneys shows two separate altercations between Black and corrections officers.
The first is around 1:50 a.m. March 24, when officers open his cell door after Black was laying on the floor. Black charged at officers. Video shows more than half a dozen officers subdue Black, including one using a Taser, and he is handcuffed and wheeled in a wheelchair — his body seemingly limp — into a different holding cell.
He lays on the ground of the second cell for for more than 10 minutes, then gets up around 2:15 a.m.
He is alone in the second cell for hours. Shortly before 9:15 a.m., he starts repeatedly screaming, still alone in his cell. Corrections officers come to his door and attempt to quiet him but are unsuccessful. This escalates over the next 10 minutes to him punching and slamming his head on the glass in the cell door.
Attorney Robert Gresham said they acknowledge Black was having some sort of crisis and that law enforcement does have to keep him from harming himself.
“Our issue begins when they go into that particular cell and they ultimately make a number of errors and decisions that amount to what we believe to be deliberate indifference and unlawful use of force,” he said.
Video shows corrections officers enter his cell and forcibly remove him as he struggles. Officers use a Taser and pepper spray. They wrestle him to the ground, handcuffing him behind his back then lifting him into a restraint chair. He can still be heard screaming as he is forced into the restraint chair.
They put a mask on his face around 9:30 a.m. and bend him forward in the chair with multiple officers putting weight on his torso. He is held doubled over like this with multiple officers pushing down on his back for more than two minutes as they work to remove his handcuffs.
“Let him tire himself out,” one officer can be heard saying during that time.
His body appears limp when they lean him back in the chair.
“Nobody is rendering any emergent medical aid at this point,” Gresham said.
Black sat in the chair not moving as medical staff and corrections officers assessed him. They moved him to the floor around 9:39 a.m. where they render CPR until an ambulance arrives.
“They know better, they should do better. We don’t have to think any further than George Floyd to know how a position asphyxiation works,” Gresham said of the May 2020 death in Minneapolis after an officer knelt on Floyd’s neck and back for more than nine minutes and sparked nationwide protests against police brutality.
“Those of us who handle these cases know that time is of the essence when individuals are not getting oxygen to the brain. The longer this goes, the less likely it is to salvage that person and save their lives,” Gresham said.
‘Never should have happened’
Black’s parents had their backs to the screen when the video was shown publicly Monday, only briefly glancing back. They first saw the videos last week at the sheriff’s office, which issued an apology to the family.
“It never should have happened,” his mother, Misti Black, said of her son’s death.
As she and other family members dabbed their eyes with tissues, she said the jail video is difficult to watch. “For me, it‘s every time I see the video, it‘s knowing that I’m going to see him take his last breath again.”
Black’s father, Kenya Black, said the hardest thing about the video was the lack of immediate action.
“You could clearly see he was unconscious and needed CPR, needed some life-saving skills. There was no sense of urgency,” he said.
The sheriff’s office said staff performed CPR, administered oxygen, medicine and used a defibrillator before medics took Black to a local hospital. He was placed on life support so his organs could be donated and was pronounced dead March 26.
Black donated his lungs and kidneys and, according to what his family was told, three lives were saved, his attorneys said.
Investigation
The Dayton Police Department is conducting the investigation, though attorney Anthony Pierson said his opinion is the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation would have been more appropriate because as a statewide agency it does not have such a close tie to the sheriff’s office.
Once the police investigation is complete, it will be presented to Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. However, Wright said because it involves a county department that it likely would be sent to another county prosecutor for review and possible prosecution.
The family’s attorneys also said the culture and administration at the jail needs to change because there are too many deaths and injuries.
“As a community, we need to stop devaluing the individuals that go into our jail simply because they’re in our jails,” Gresham said.
The family has filed a complaint with the Dayton Unit NAACP and Wright said a lawsuit will be forthcoming once attorneys receive requested information, including the jail video audio, body camera video and a copy of the jail policies and procedures.
A Dayton Daily News analysis of state data for 2023 showed that seven people died after being put in custody at the Montgomery County Jail that year, more than at any other jail in Ohio.
In 2024 another inmate died in custody after taking a gun from an officer while receiving care at Kettering Health Dayton.
The county is working toward a large-scale jail renovation, with construction expected to start in July and be completed by spring 2027.
Montgomery County commissioners released the following statement regarding Black’s death and investigation, referring questions to Dayton police and the county coroner’s office.
“Montgomery County Board of County Commissioners extends its deepest sympathy to the family of Christian Black in the wake of this tragedy. Our thoughts are with them as they work through this difficult time.”
