By JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) â A South Carolina prosecutor decided Monday not to charge two jail employees who stunned a mentally ill Black man 10 times and kneeled on his back until he stopped breathing, calling the guards videotaped actions âdamning,â but not against the law.
The Charleston County jail guards in January were following their aggressive training in handling inmates, so Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said she could not prove the guards intended to kill Jamal Sutherland, who at the time was refusing to go to his bond hearing.
âThis is how they were trained, and they didnât have a reason to expect this outcome because they had done it so many times before,â said Wilson, who issued a report with links to video footage and other information.
That training, which Wilson said created a “militaristic culture” at the jail, included going in cells of uncooperative inmates with shotguns with less than lethal rounds, shocking them with Tasers or spraying them with pepper spray and using holds that can restrict breathing. They only briefly touched on calming inmates down or leaving them alone, according to an expert report Wilson asked for.
Prior to the incident, the same guards spent 15 minutes trying to talk Sutherland into voluntarily going to the hearing and asked supervisors if they could do something other than attack him. But they got no help, so Wilson said the deputies did what they were trained to do use the Taser or pepper spray.