The family of Charles Adair has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against Kansas authorities, seeking to force the release of video showing how the man died in police custody after a sheriff's deputy applied pressure to his back while he lay handcuffed on a jail cell bunk.
Adair was arrested in July on misdemeanor warrants related to traffic violations. He arrived at the Wyandotte County jail severely ill: his leg required amputation and had become so badly infected that he went directly to a hospital upon arrest. Medical staff diagnosed him with a bone infection common in diabetics and also found he was schizophrenic.
After his leg was rewrapped the following evening, Adair argued with a deputy wheeling him back to his cell and threw himself out of the wheelchair. Once returned to his cell, he was placed face-down on the bottom bunk with his legs and knees on the ground. He repeatedly called for help.
According to the lawsuit, Deputy Richard Fatherley pressed his body weight onto Adair's back for one minute and 26 seconds while Adair lay in handcuffs. Other deputies removed the handcuffs as Fatherley shifted his weight forward. None of the officers present intervened, the lawsuit states, and staff failed to adjust their approach despite Adair's apparent mental health crisis.
Fatherley was charged in September with second-degree murder. He remains free on bond and on administrative leave from the Wyandotte County Sheriff's Office.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the Adair family, called for public transparency. "The public has a right to transparency when someone dies in custody in this manner," Crump said in a statement announcing the lawsuit filed in April.
The lawsuit names Fatherley, the Wyandotte County sheriff, and the unified government for the county and Kansas City, Kansas. While Crump and co-counsel Harry Daniels have been permitted to view the video, the sheriff's office has rejected a records request from the Associated Press to release it publicly.
The lawsuit also alleges that Fatherley retained access to his sheriff's office email after being charged, enabling him to communicate with other agency members and known witnesses. The office deactivated his email on April 13, after the litigation was filed. A status conference in the criminal case is scheduled for May.
Fatherley's attorney, James Spies, has characterized Adair's death as "a tragic accident" and denied it resulted from his client's actions.
Author James Rodriguez: "The decision to withhold video evidence while a deputy faces a murder charge and a family pursues civil redress raises hard questions about who accountability actually serves."
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