CT Examiner petitioned a civil court on Wednesday to stop the Office of Attorney General William Tong from suppressing a video showing the death of J’Allen Jones at Garner Correctional Institution in 2018.
Alex Taubes, a New Haven-based civil rights attorney representing the online newspaper, filed a petition with the Connecticut Superior Court of Hartford to intervene in the case to prevent the court from sealing a video of the death from the public. Jones died after being hooded, placed in full-body restraints, struck, pepper sprayed and sedated while being transferred by nine officers and medical personnel to another cell in the prison.
Jones, a 31-year-old Black man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery.
Taubes agreed to take the case on a pro bono basis.
“How can the public meaningfully weigh in on a matter of public policy — in this case the handling of mental illness in our prisons — if the public doesn’t know what is happening,” CT Examiner Editor Gregory Stroud said in a statement explaining his decision to intervene in the case. “Public policy isn’t something that should be decided without real public participation. And real reform doesn’t happen behind closed doors.”
In late 2018, the mother of Jones and his fiancé filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the nine correction staff members, who are being represented by the Office of Attorney General William Tong.
During a court hearing on Tuesday, Deputy Associate Attorney General Terrence O’Neill questioned the motives of attorneys representing Jones’ estate, who have called for the public release of the video.
“The plaintiff is not the public,” O’Neill said, claiming that attorneys were advocating for the release of the video as “some effort to taint the jury pool.”
In an 18-page filing with the court on Wednesday, CT Examiner argued on behalf of the public’s right to know in the case.
“When government officials are alleged to have abused their power, the case for public scrutiny is at its zenith,” Taubes argued.
The filing repeatedly referenced a 1998 court decision, Rosado v. Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., allowing the Hartford Courant and New York Times to intervene to unseal documents detailing allegations of systemic child abuse cover-ups.
In an earlier interview with CT Examiner, Tong defended his effort to prevent the release of the video as a matter of public safety.
“My job is to make sure that the state of Connecticut and our criminal justice system is safe and effective and functional and can do its job, which is to keep people safe inside and outside of prisons and to make sure that we can properly investigate, prosecute, incarcerate and release people in a way that’s safe and fair and we are going to take action to protect the state,” told CT Examiner in a Jan. 6 interview. “And, when we think an action will prejudice the state’s ability to do its job and will prejudice the criminal justice system, we are going to take action to protect the state and criminal justice system and that is what we are doing here.”
In its filing, CT Examiner directly rebutted that motive.
“The ‘security’ argument seems to be a proxy for a desire to avoid accountability or public criticism,” Taubes argued in the filing for CT Examiner. “Preventing embarrassment or liability is emphatically not a valid interest to override public access. If anything, transparency about this tragic incident could improve safety and security in the long run, by spurring any necessary reforms or training enhancements. The Connecticut Department of Correction’s own independent ombudsman and other officials have called for the video’s release as a matter of public healing and improving policy.”
The incident
According to an account released by the Department of Correction, Jones resisted a strip search and began “incoherently” chanting and shouting. He was restrained onto a bed, struck and had his clothes forcibly removed by officers. Officers placed a spit hood over Jones’ head and pepper sprayed him twice before he was injected with sedatives.
Once Jones was “less resistive,” according to the official account, Jones was moved to a wheelchair, with officers noting that he appeared to be “dropping his weight” and “refusing to walk.”
He was later pronounced dead on March 25, 2018 at Danbury Hospital. Three months later, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide.
An investigation conducted by the Department of Correction found that staff had violated its use of force policy by failing to recognize that Jones was in medical distress or initiating any life saving measure for 7 minutes and 16 seconds after he was unconscious. But, the investigation cleared staff of other wrongdoing.
An investigation into the death by State Police was closed following a determination by then Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III that there had been no criminal acts leading to Jones’ death.
Prior to CT Examiner’s petition, advocates have been calling on the court to release the video.
In October, the Connecticut American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition to intervene in the court to release the video, but that motion was denied. The ACLU is appealing that decision.
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