A Montgomery County grand jury on Wednesday declined to charge this former employee and nine other jail officers connected to the death of 25-year-old Christian Black.
Black, of Zanesville, was taken into custody March 23 after reportedly crashing a stolen vehicle on Interstate 70 in Englewood. He was taken to a local hospital, then to the jail, and then after two altercations with corrections officers, died.
His death was ruled a homicide by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, which said it was the result of mechanical and positional asphyxiation.
Video from inside the jail shows the two altercations with officers pepper spraying him, using a Taser on him and finally putting him in a restraint chair with handcuffs. The video then shows officers bend him forward with multiple officers pushing down on his back as they removed the handcuffs, after which he goes limp in the chair.
Credit: Edited by Bryant Billing
The sheriff’s office said that staff performed CPR, gave Black oxygen and medicine and used a defibrillator before medics arrived to take Black to the hospital.
He was placed on life support so that his organs could be donated, and was finally pronounced dead March 26.
Possible charges against the 10 jail employees were presented to the grand jury by special prosecutors from the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office.
The 10 jail employees were suspended after the incident while an investigation was ongoing, but six returned to work in September after attending training that included instructions on using the emergency restraint chair, the sheriff’s office said. Four others remained on leave at the time.
Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck said three of those four employees remain on paid administrative leave as the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office continues an investigation into the incident.
This investigation began after the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Buckeye State Sheriff’s Association to request that another sheriff’s office conduct a review of the incident to “see if any of our policies or procedures were violated and if there are any other steps that we should implement to reduce the likelihood of something like this happening again,” Streck said in a statement to this news outlet.
“If Hamilton County’s investigation finds any policy violations, we will move forward with corrective action,” Streck said.
One employee, according to Streck, was “probationary released” on Wednesday.
“Although I believe that the officer had no intention of harming Mr. Black and that he was only trying to keep Mr. Black from causing injury to himself, the duration for which Mr. Black remained bent over was not consistent with the guidelines we follow to avoid positional asphyxia,” Streck said.
Black’s family filed lawsuits against Montgomery County and the jail, as well as NaphCare, which provides medical care for the jail, and nurses who were on the scene during the final altercation.
Credit: Sydney Dawes
Credit: Sydney Dawes
The family has repeatedly said that Black’s death was murder and called for charges against the jail employees involved.
Black’s mother, Misti Black, said that the jail employees took it upon themselves to be “the judge and the executioner” for Christian, while attorney Michael Wright, who is representing the family, said that the nurses did nothing to help save Christian’s life.
Montgomery County approved a $7 million settlement with the family at the end of September.
Wright, Robert Gresham and Anthony Pierson — attorneys for the family — said in a statement that the family is “deeply disappointed” by the grand jury decision, but added, “we believe the absence of criminal charges does not mean there was no wrongdoing.”
They said that they would continue to pursue “every avenue for truth, transparency and accountability.”
“Let us be clear: Christian died because medical professionals failed him at every critical moment. NaphCare staff were present when Christian was restrained. They observed him become unresponsive. They delayed life-saving care for over five minutes — long enough for irreversible brain damage to occur. That is medical negligence, and we will prove it in civil court,” they said.
“Christian’s family deserves justice. Every person in custody deserves basic human decency and adequate medical care,” the statement said.
Staff writers Jen Balduf and Josh Sweigart contributed to this report.
