Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for January 22, 2006 CAIRO OFFICIALS DISCUSS JAIL DEATH

From today's Southern Illinoisan...

Questions answered, questions raised: Cairo officials discuss Demetrius Flowers' death

by: andrea hahn
the southern

CAIRO - Remarks made on Saturday by Cairo Mayor Paul Farris and City Attorney Michael O'Shea during a meeting of the United Front answered some questions about the death of 38-year-old Demetrius Flowers, who died in a Cairo Police Department holding cell, but raised several more.

Farris referred to "an extra pair of shoes" in Flowers' cell, saying, "That's where the shoelaces came from."

O'Shea told Arby Davis, Flowers' father, that he did not believe Flowers had deliberately killed himself.

"In my opinion," he said, "this was not a suicide. But, oddly enough, that doesn't mean it was a homicide. There are things in between."

A coroner's inquest has not yet been held in Flowers' death. At the inquest, a coroner's jury will be asked to give the official cause of death. Coroners' juries are given five options. Besides homicide and suicide, they may choose accident, natural causes or unknown.

O'Shea said he was confident that, once a nine-panel police department surveillance video tape was made public by the state police, who currently have custody of the tape, it would be obvious there was no foul play on the part of the police department.

He said it was his understanding that Flowers' neck was not broken and he was not actually hanging by the shoe strings. He implied he had a different explanation for Flowers' death, but chose not to reveal his theory at the Saturday meeting.

"Sometimes you are governed by caution," he said. "You may think (my not giving you my theory today) is a cop-out, but I'm not running out of this town. I'll be here at a later date."

He went on to say he didn't want to make public a theory that the family might not yet be ready to hear.

Farris attended the meeting, which was called by members of Flowers' family, after being publicly invited to do so at a meeting of the Cairo City Council in December. O'Shea attended with the mayor. Three members of the city council - Elbert "Bo" Purchase, Bobby Whitaker and Linda Jackson - were also in attendance.

Purchase and Jackson declined to sit at the front of the church when invited by the Rev. Ronnie Marshall. Jackson said she and Purchase did not want to go up front in case they needed to leave during the meeting. They both remained in attendance throughout the meeting. Whitaker sat in a front pew.

Marshall, pastor of the Christian Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago, is national training director for the United Front, a national coalition dedicated to furthering African-American causes.

The meeting, held at the Holy City Church of God in Christ, was called by family members of Demetrius Flowers. Flowers died on Dec. 14 in a holding cell at the Cairo Police Department. His death by strangulation was initially considered a suicide by city officials. Family members and many community members, however, were suspicious of foul play.

Farris said he came to the meeting because it is "very necessary to give the family of Demetrius Flowers and this community some answers." However, some of his comments raised new questions about how Flowers died while in custody of the Cairo Police Department.

Flowers was found dead at approximately 9:15 a.m. Dec. 14. The initial cause of death was given as cerebral hypoxia - a lack of oxygen to the brain, caused in this case by strangulation with shoe strings.

Three police officers were suspended beginning Dec. 19 without pay for failing to remove all potentially dangerous property from Flowers before placing him in the cell. Two dispatchers, who double as jailors when a person is in the holding cells, were likewise suspended for failing to check on Flowers regularly and in person as is required by Cairo police detainee procedure.

As Farris gave a narrative of his personal experience of Dec. 14, he referred to "an extra pair of shoes already slid up under the bunk." He said "that's where the shoe strings came from."

A collective expression of the assembly indicated surprise at this revelation. Farris said that, according to police reports, Officer Terry Crowe checked on Flowers after another officer put him in the cell. He found Flowers still had his wallet. When he put the wallet in the locker, a pair of shoes was already there. Farris suggested that Crowe probably assumed there was not an extra pair of shoes in the cell.

While Farris did not explain the presence of the other pair of shoes - to whom they belonged, why they were there and if they appeared to have been deliberately hidden from casual sight - he said the five Cairo Police Department employees were guilty of a breach of contract in their failure to follow procedure.

"The breach of contract was that they failed to get all his belongings," he said. "The second was that the dispatchers should have got up and went back and checked on him, not jut looked at the (video) monitor."

The question of the extra shoes was overshadowed by a discussion about the video, which the family said they should have the opportunity to see for themselves.

"I want to see that video, too," Farris said. "You are not unreasonable at all in your request (to see the video)."

"I think (the state police's) refusal (to let the family see the video) is inappropriate," O'Shea said. "I think they are using faulty reasoning."

Family and community members also called the mayor to task for putting Crowe back on the job before the investigation of Flowers' death is complete. Farris justified his action by saying Crowe was the only one of the five employees suspended who admitted his fault in failing to follow procedure, and was the only one of the five to drop his grievance for wrongful suspension against the city.

The other four employees - Lt. Gary Hankins, Lt. Timothy Brown and dispatchers Don Beggs and Legina Meyer - have filed a grievance against the city.

Flowers was originally detained after Cairo police officers made a second visit to his residence in a matter of a domestic disturbance in the overnight hours of Dec. 13 and Dec. 14. He was taken into custody by Brown at about 4 a.m. on Dec. 14.

From today's Southeast Missourian...

Cairo official hints at jail death's cause

RUDI KELLER ~ Southeast Missourian

CAIRO, Ill. -- The death of Demetrius Flowers in Cairo police custody was "not a homicide" and it was "not a suicide," city attorney Michael O'Shea told family and friends of the dead man on Saturday.

During statements that delivered a shock to the gathering of about 45 at the Holy City Church of God in Christ, O'Shea hinted that an ongoing Illinois State Police investigation would reveal a cause for the death that has not been considered in public speculation.

And he wouldn't reveal details to back up his statements.

"I am not able to give you definite answers," O'Shea said. "I am not sure you are ready."

Flowers, 38, was found dead in a holding cell at approximately 9 a.m. on Dec. 14. He had been arrested and brought to the city jail about five hours earlier. A preliminary autopsy found that Flowers died of strangulation. He reportedly was found hanging by shoelaces in his cell.

A videotape of Flowers in his holding cell is in the hands of state police investigators, who refuse to release a copy back to the city, Mayor Paul Farris told the gathering.

During the meeting, some details of Flowers' final hours emerged, but most of his stay in the holding cell is clouded by a lack of specifics.

Some of the details revealed raise additional questions. Flowers was booked into his cell without being required to turn over personal property. Later in the morning, Farris said, an officer retrieved Flowers' wallet and other items, placing them in a police locker.

An extra pair of shoes

How Flowers obtained the shoelaces that killed him is also unclear. A pair of shoes was in the locker when it was searched after the death, but a pair of shoes was also underneath the bunk in the holding cell.

Five days after Flowers' death, three police officers and two dispatchers were suspended without pay. One officer, patrolman Terry Crow, admitted he violated police policies for watching over people in custody, and as a result his suspension was lifted, Farris said.

"He is the only person who admitted shortcomings and the only one who said he failed to do his duty," Farris said. "And he has taken his time off without pay without any grudge."

That revelation provoked an angry outburst from Arby Davis, Flowers' father, who demanded that Crow be placed back on suspension.

But it was the lack of details in O'Shea's statements that began some of the sharpest exchanges of the 90-minute meeting.

As Davis and Melinda Flowers, Flowers' sister, pressed for particulars, O'Shea gave some hints but no direct answers. Flowers was not elevated and did not have the broken neck typical of a hanging victim, O'Shea said.

"We need to move forward," he said. "You will find that Demetrius Flowers did not die at the hands of the Cairo Police Department."

O'Shea refused to answer any questions from a reporter about his statements as he left the church.

State police haven't announced any conclusions in the investigation, and Alexander County Coroner David Barkett hasn't set a date for an inquest. The lack of information has many in Cairo wondering about the delays and worried that a cover-up is underway. During Saturday's meeting, calls for the investigation to be handed over to law enforcement agencies with no ties to the area were seconded with shouts of "not the Klan."

Those comments underscored why family members are suspicious about the events of Flowers's death. Cairo has a long history of polarized race relations, and many black residents view the police as a tool of oppression.

"Police should be ministers of education in the law, not get out of their cars with guns and billy clubs in their hands," said the Rev. Ronnie Marshall, who helped lead the meeting with the Rev. Alex Brooks.

In his opening address, Brooks reminded Farris and O'Shea that they had an obligation to speak openly about what they knew.

"Any time a question can't be answered, there is a problem," Brooks said. "Many of us don't feel he hung himself."

As he was introducing Farris, Marshall told the gathering that they should appreciate the mayor's attendance. "We have to commend him because he is here," Marshall said. "But don't come up and show us how good-looking you are. Bring some answers."

Farris sought to assure them that he, too, is determined to bring the truth to the front. "You are not unreasonable in your request."

State police investigators refused again on Friday to release the videotape of Flowers, Farris said. "I and Mr. O'Shea came here with the intent of turning over a copy of these tapes to you," Farris said.

Addressing Davis, Farris said the frustration is understandable. "I can't even fathom what it would be like 30 days later to have no closure on your son," he said.

As the gathering broke up, Melinda Flowers, said O'Shea's statement was confusing and frustrating. If it was not suicide or a homicide, she said, "what are they hiding in the middle? That is where the key is."