Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 7, 2006 CAIRO JAIL DEATH

From the Paducah Sun...

Group continues plans for "people's inquest"

Brian Peach bpeach@paducahsun.com

CAIRO, Ill. - A small group disputing a jury's ruling of suicide regarding the Dec. 14 death of Demetrius Flowers at the Cairo Police Department is planning a series of meetings and hopes to uncover evidence of foul play.

Flowers' family contends that the investigation was handled improperly and members said they were convinced his death was not suicide, as a coroner's inquest determined on April 21 through eyewitness interviews and jail videotape. Most of the tape images weren't clear, both in quality and in never showing Flowers' face while he was in the jail cell. His feet, however, were shown.

The jury ruled that Flowers hanged himself by his shoestrings, and the video showed a shoeless man's still legs for five hours in his cell before he was ever checked on by officers.

On Saturday, a meeting took place at Holy City Church of God in Christ on 18th Street. It was originally scheduled for a week earlier and was called by the Rev. Charles Koen following the inquest. He is the founder of United Front, a civil rights group supporting Flowers' family, though no family members attended.

Instead, six people affiliated with United Front talked about steps that could be taken, all of which they hope will culminate at a "people's inquest."

Koen said the created committee is charged with "stopping the violence and killing in Cairo," with a focus on Flowers' death, the investigation into which Koen called a sham.

Various issues should be addressed by the next meeting, at noon this Saturday in the United Front office at 601 Washington Ave.

Results of a second autopsy on Flowers will be reviewed and at least one of the six people present may contact students in the television department at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill. Committee members want the students to study the jail tape, perhaps for tampering. The hope is to discredit the tape's analysis provided by detectives and Alexander County Coroner David Barkett.

The committee also wants to see Barbara Harris - Flowers' then live-in girlfriend - get her chance to tell her story. She was not interviewed at the coroner's inquest because Barkett and Alexander County State's Attorney Jeffery B. Farris said her earlier claims were discredited by videotape and interviews. She had told the Sun and other media outlets that she was at the jail and could hear Flowers being beaten, but the tape didn't show Harris at the jail or anyone with Flowers in his cell.

"What we want to do is put together a separate report," Koen said. "We need to pull our finances together and talk to the family. We have to be very careful about this."