Judge grants delay in case seeking video of NC inmate’s death
A judge agreed to delay a hearing for two weeks over whether he will release videos of an incident at the Forsyth County Jail last December that led to a Greensboro man’s death.
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill motioned for the July 15 hearing to be delayed due to his vacation plans and the need for attorneys for the people charged in the death to have time to review the footage, as well as because of concerns about whether the public should see the videos before any civil or criminal proceedings.
“These video recordings contain what the undersigned believes to be both illustrative and substantive evidence in the pending criminal matters related to death,” O’Neill wrote.
The Dec. 4 death of 56-year-old John Neville was not reported to the public. On June 26, after months of being denied information about what happened to Neville at the jail, The News & Observer petitioned the courts to release the videos that captured the incident.
The N&O’s attorney agreed to delay the hearing to July 29.
Under North Carolina law, body-camera footage is not a public record and can be released only with a signed order from a judge.
In O’Neill’s motion, he told the judge that video recordings exist from various angles and with audio that captures the activities and movements of defendants before and after they responded to Neville’s “initial medical crisis.”
722-page SBI report
The State Bureau of Investigation has prepared a 722-page report detailing what happened to Neville at the Forsyth County Jail that led to his death, according to O’Neill’s motion.
The SBI report is not a public record, but an autopsy report released Thursday describes Neville crying out for help and telling officers he can’t breathe.
Five detention officers and a nurse face felony involuntary manslaughter charges after placing Neville into what is known as prone restraint for more than 15 minutes, ultimately leading to his suffocation, brain injury and death, the autopsy report states.
Prone restraint is a controversial technique in which a person is placed on their stomach with their arms restrained behind their back and their ankles lifted up to their wrists. This form of restraint has been known to be deadly, and many law enforcement agencies have banned the practice.
After the SBI finished its report in April, O’Neill received a copy of it as well as videos the SBI collected for their investigation, according to Special Agent in Charge Scott Williams.
On Thursday afternoon when the motion was filed, only two of the five deputies had attorneys: Corp. Edward Roussel and Detention Officer Christopher Stamper. Both joined in the request for a delay.
Also facing charges are Detention Officers Sarah E. Poole and Antonio M. Woodley, Sgt. Lavette M. Williams, and nurse Michelle Heughins.
Following The News & Observer’s petition, Superior Court Judge R. Gregory Horne, who presides over a judicial district that includes Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga, and Yancey counties, was assigned to the hearing.
What happened in the jail?
Neville faced a misdemeanor assault on a female charge taken out by a woman at a Guilford County magistrate’s office. He was located a month later in Forsyth County.
The autopsy report said detention officers and the nurse responded to the jail cell Dec. 2 after his cellmate hit a panic button because Neville had fallen out of the top bunk bed and looked to be having seizures on the floor.
Detention officers used prone restraint on Neville as they tried to determine what was happening to him and calm down the man who was now delirious and unsure of what was going on around him.
The restraint caused his breathing and pulse to stop, according to the report, but it would be 19 minutes after he was put in that position, and 4 minutes after they realized what had happened, that they began CPR.
Doctors were able to get his pulse back on and off but he never recovered.
He died two days later at the hospital.
