No indictment of Miss. officer
A Clarke County grand jury decided not to indict a police officer involved in a fatal altercation with a Stonewall man.
District Attorney Bilbo Mitchel said the jury heard from all the witnesses to the struggle between officer Kevin Herrington and 39-year-old Jonathan Sanders that led to Sanders' death as well as from the man's mother and were allowed to question them..
A grand jury usually only hears from an investigator or a prosecutor.
"I think that showed great transparency with the community," said Stonewall Police Chief Mike Street. "They called in every witness, and the grand jury was allowed to question them. They learned firsthand what their roles were and what they saw, and they got to see all the evidence."
The grand jury also was allowed to question the medical examiner, Street said.
The findings of the grand jury are being turned over to the FBI, he said.
"We want to make sure we're doing everything we're supposed to do and doing it properly," Street said.
"We will work with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Section and the United States Attorney's Office to review the facts and sworn testimony in this case to see if there is evidence of a federal civil rights violation," said FBI Special Agent Jason Pack.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba and C.J. Lawrence, the Sanders family attorneys, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Sanders' death was a result of "mechanical asphyxia associated with acute cocaine toxicity," according to the grand jury report. A preliminary autopsy showed "manual asphyxiation," but was awaiting toxicology tests.
Autopsy finds man was strangled in police encounter
"This is evidenced by skin abrasions at the base of the neck, conjuctival petechiae and hemorrhage in the soft tissue of the neck associated with recent ingestion of cocaine," the report reads. "This resulted in decreased respiration, decreased cerebral blood flow, cardiac stimulation and death. Toxicology results are consistent with recent ingestion of cocaine, a known cardio-toxic substance, and was most likely a contributory factor in his death."
That process took two days, said Stonewall Police Chief Mike Street. According to the grand jury report, the jury found that Herrington had a reasonable suspicion to believe Sanders was involved in drug activity.
Now that the case has been to a grand jury, Street said, he can release the details of the stop, many of which had been released by the attorneys previously in the case.
Street said Herrington was backed into a spot where he was monitoring traffic, and he saw Sanders' horse-drawn buggy and a vehicle pulled alongside it in a suspicious manner that indicated a possible drug transaction. Seeing that Herrington was there, they chose to meet up at a different place.
Herrington knew the second party and pulled him over because he knew there were warrants on him. The man produced a receipt that showed he had paid his warrants.
At some point, Herrington gained information that Sanders was allegedly in possession of cocaine and was looking to distribute it, so he proceeded to stop him, Street said. During the course of the initial pat-down, Herrington found Sanders to be in possession of cocaine in a plastic sandwich-type bag. Herrington placed the bag on the hood of his vehicle and went to continue the pat-down.
Sanders then grabbed the bag of cocaine, stuck it in his mouth, and began to run, Street said. Herrington gave chase, and the two ended up in a physical altercation. Street said Herrington was not able to finish the search on Sanders, so he didn't know if he was armed or not, and when Sanders went for Herrington's weapon, he put him in a headlock.
It was during that fight that Sanders died.
Police: Incident between horseman, officer ends in death
"The grand jury report shows that he had large amounts of cocaine in his system and that contributed to his death, according to the report and the testimony that was heard," Street said, adding the actual cause of death is undetermined because the medical examiner could not determine conclusively if the cocaine was the cause of the death alone or if it was a combination of the cocaine and the headlock.
When Sanders' mother spoke before the grand jury, she told them about his character as a father, son and friend.
"We, the Grand Jury, believe that Jonathan did not act in conformity with his normal character due to the influence of cocaine which was found in his system at his time of death," the report reads.
Street said there are cases around the country every year where someone swallows narcotics to avoid police finding them.
"Any situation where someone’s looking at prison time and it looks like they’re going to get a long sentence or something, they’re going to do things normally they probably wouldn’t have done," he said. "There are over 250 instances a year where someone will try to ingest narcotics to try to destroy the evidence, not thinking that the amount they ingest at that time is a lethal dose."
The grand jury found the force used by Herrington in restraining Sanders by putting him in a headlock was not excessive under the circumstances, and that he acted in a manner consistent with what he had been taught at the police training academy and by his superiors.
Sanders had been to prison once and was out on bond from another drug charge. Officials have said that if he were arrested a third time on a felony, he could be charged with being a habitual offender, and would have gone back to prison for life if convicted.
The grand jury also found no evidence supporting reports that Herrington had used racial slurs. The witness who had previously made that statement did not stand by it before the grand jury, officials said.
Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.