Charleston County will pay $10M to Jamal Sutherland’s family over his SC jail death
Charleston County agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Jamal Sutherland, a Black man with a history of mental illness who died inside the county jail in January after two deputies used pepper spray, forced him onto his stomach and shocked him repeatedly with Tasers.
Charleston County Council approved the settlement in a unanimous vote Tuesday evening, exactly 140 days after Sutherland died at the Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston.
During the meeting, Councilman Teddie Pryor said he met with the Sutherland family last week, where they prayed together and he promised them reforms would be coming in the wake of their son’s death. Pryor called it tragic.
“We know that no amount of money will bring their loved one back, but I think this starts the healing process,” Pryor said.
“We want to start the healing process,” Pryor continued, “but that can’t start until we start facing the truth and facing what’s going on.”
The Sutherland family issued a statement Wednesday afternoon through their attorney, Mark Peper of Charleston.
“Justice for Jamal will come in many forms. We are pleased to have negotiated a settlement with the government entities that provides the type of civil justice he deserves, but our work is not yet done,” it read.
“With God’s help, we will continue the necessary conversations with local, state, and federal leaders to ensure that everyone affected by mental illness is treated with the same dignity and respect we all deserve and demand. As we move forward, please continue to pray for our family, our community, each other, and justice for Jamal.”
The vote Tuesday coincided with the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose murder by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national reckoning over race and policing.
In recent weeks, during a steady drumbeat of demonstrations in Charleston, protesters have invoked Floyd’s death while demanding criminal charges be brought against the deputies involved in Sutherland’s death.
On Wednesday, protesters stood outside the downtown Charleston office of 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson to again call for criminal charges. This time, Sutherland’s mother, Amy Sutherland, joined them.
She said the officers involved are the ones who need to pay for what happened to her son.
“We should not be wondering what we are going to charge them with, but when we’re going to charge them. They should have been charged the day he died,” she said.
In a letter last week, Wilson said she will be seeking a second opinion about how Sutherland died inside the Charleston County jail and will be seeking expert opinion and advice about use of force in a detention setting.
Sutherland was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, after two Charleston County sheriff’s deputies forcibly removed him from his cell for a scheduled bond hearing. He was 31.
Graphic footage released earlier this month by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office shows the final moments in the life of Sutherland, a Goose Creek man with a history of mental illness.
Sutherland was booked into the Al Cannon Detention Center on Jan. 4 after an alleged fight at Palmetto Lowcountry Behavioral Health Center, a mental health facility where Sutherland was receiving care for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He was arrested by North Charleston Police.
During Sutherland’s encounter with the two jail deputies on Jan. 5, footage shows he was sprayed twice with pepper spray and shocked repeatedly with Tasers. Sutherland wailed in pain as he lay face down on the floor, at one point screaming for 34 seconds straight.
As he lay on the floor with deputies on top of him, their knees pressed into his back, Sutherland at one point can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe.”
The deputies involved in the incident were detention deputy Brian Houle and detention Sgt. Lindsay Fickett.
“He got tased about probably six to eight times at least,” Houle can be heard saying on body-camera footage released by the sheriff’s office.
Last week, more than four months after Sutherland’s death, both of the officers were fired.
The $10 million payout joins a growing list of settlements paid to family members following high-profile killings of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. By comparison, the city of North Charleston paid $6.5 million in 2015 to the family of Walter Scott, an unarmed Black man who was killed by then-officer Michael Slager, who shot eight times at Scott as he fled.
Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano, in a statement Wednesday afternoon, said she hoped the settlement might provide the family “some measure of comfort in the midst of their grief.”
In addition to an investigation by the State Law Enforcement Division, Graziano has said her office is also conducting an internal investigation into what happened.
“To some degree, I have held back on public communications until I could be confident that they would not damage the integrity of internal and external investigations. I am committed to ensuring that justice can be obtained in this, and in all, matters,” Graziano said.
Graziano went on to say that she takes responsibility for what happened, calling it “a disastrous set of circumstances” that led to Sutherland’s death.
At Wednesday’s demonstration outside Wilson’s office, Sutherland’s mother said her son’s death was not normal.
“Mental illness is not, I repeat, is not a reason for a murder,” she said.
Wilson has said she expects to make a decision about criminal charges before the end of June.
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 3:59 PM.
