The family of a detainee who died at the St. Louis City Justice Center on Saturday said he wasn’t resisting jail staff before being put in a restraint chair, after watching video of the incident.
Samuel Hayes Jr. died later that evening. Jail officials said that Hayes got into an altercation with another detainee and that afterward he did not respond to verbal commands.
Lawyers for Hayes’ family said the video shows him leaving the jail cell and being handcuffed and falling over after being injured in the altercation.
“We saw him get put into a restraint chair with no need for it, and he was left there,” said Jack Waldron, a lawyer from the Khazaeli Wyrsch law firm representing the family.
“We saw very briefly that a nurse came to look at him, didn't appear to use any vital signs, didn't appear to examine his vital signs or anything else. And we saw him die.”
Waldron and the family allege jail staff failed to follow restraint chair policies leading up to Hayes’ restraint and failed to monitor him, including not completing any medical vetting before placing him in the chair.
“You only get into that chair if you're continuing to resist,” Waldron said. “We saw Sam come out of his cell, he was clearly handcuffed. The only way he gets handcuffed is if he's not resisting.”
He also said Hayes started convulsing about five minutes after being placed in the chair.
“If somebody had been monitoring him, they would have seen that he was very clearly convulsing and in medical distress," Waldron said. “That didn't happen. So he continued to convulse for another 20 minutes until he stopped and he was still.”
Waldron said the video shows people walking by Hayes without doing anything. He said it an hour and a half elapsed before someone checked on Hayes.
“I don’t want another parent that has to go through what I'm going through, I can’t sleep at night,” Samuel Hayes Sr. said. “They just didn’t help my son.”
Family said the video of Hayes’ restraint only shows the top half of his body, leading to more concerns that the video didn’t capture everything.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officials said Hayes didn’t respond to verbal commands afterward and was restrained in a chair. He was later found unresponsive and taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Hayes was the 20th person to die at the city jail since 2020 and had been detained at the jail for over a year. He was facing first-degree murder and armed criminal action charges.
The department's Force Investigation Unit is investigating. Officers are also awaiting autopsy results.
Mayor Cara Spencer said earlier Thursday that her office will release the videos before Haynes died at the jail as soon as possible.
A spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety said it couldn’t comment on an open investigation.
Waldron said the family expects to file a lawsuit against the city and will host a vigil for Hayes at 6 p.m. Saturday outside the jail.
Hayes’ mother, Anita Jackson, said that the jail deaths have to stop and that other families who have gone through the same situation need to stand together.
“He wasn't the first one that died in the St Louis City Justice Center, he's number 20,” Jackson said. “Where are all the other families at? We need you guys here so everybody can represent and get something done to the Justice Center.”
