Family releases video showing Black man’s final moments before death in Missouri prison

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri man who died after being placed in a corner and held in a Missouri prison lay motionless for nearly 10 minutes before a nurse examined him, jail video showed Tuesday.

Video from the finale moments before Othel Moore’s death in December 2023 shows the 38-year-old Black rising with a mask covering his face, his hands behind his back and his legs bound as a guard watches from outside his cell.

Four former Jefferson City Correctional Center employees have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said charges against the fifth person had been dropped.

The complaint says he guarded Moore while he was pepper-sprayed, put a mask over his face and left him in a position where he suffocated.

Moore’s mother and sister separately filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

Surveillance footage provided by the Moore family’s attorneys shows several incarcerated men stripped to their boxer shorts with their hands behind their backs as guards search through cells and belongings on Dec. 8, 2023, the day Moore died.

According to Cole County Attorney Locke Thompson’s office, a guard pepper-sprayed Moore while he stood handcuffed just outside his cell door.

Video released by Moore’s family shows him being led away from other incarcerated men. The guards held his arms as he fell to his knees and eventually lay face down on the floor.

The guards then tied his legs and put a mask over his face, then strapped him to a wheelchair in a semi-reclined position – as seen in the video.

While he was restrained, the footage shows Moore rocking back and forth but did not appear to struggle with the guards.

Guards told investigators that Moore did not follow commands to remain quiet and that he spit on them, although witnesses said Moore spat pepper spray from his mouth.

The footage shows how guards took Moore to a locked cell, where he initially tried to rise to a more upright position before falling back onto the reclined headrest.

His movements gradually slowed over about 20 minutes until he lay motionless, with his head tilted to the side.

A nurse arrived about 10 minutes after Moore went still, calmly checked his pulse and moved his limp head. A nurse and another staff member briefly applied pressure to the boy’s upper body before he was taken out of his cell.

The Moore family’s attorney, Andrew M. Stroth, said at a news conference Tuesday that jail staff had “no sense of urgency.”

In a separate statement, Stroth said the video highlights “the medical staff’s complete disregard for the sanctity of life, deliberate indifference and failure to provide Othel with emergency medical treatment.”

Ten employees and contractor employees were fired in response to Moore’s death.

“We have taken and will continue to take steps necessary to reduce safety risks for all individuals in our facilities,” the department said in a June statement after criminal charges were filed against several former employees. “We take seriously our responsibility to create the safest environment possible and will not tolerate behavior or conditions that threaten the well-being of Missourians working or living at our facilities.”

Pojmann said in an email Tuesday that body cameras are now being used in all state maximum security facilities.

Three former employees charged with second-degree murder in Moore’s death are scheduled to go on trial in January. The fourth will appear in court on December 11.