A Cleveland mother of three filed a lawsuit this week against the county and two Cuyahoga County Jail officers for horrific abuse inflicted on her that was caught on camera. In addition, newly released body camera footage also showed the aftermath of the incident that one attorney called “torture.”
READ MORE: Cleveland Jail Video Shows Guard Beating Mentally Disabled Inmate
Surveillance footage released in May showed Chantelle Glass being wheeled into an empty room in the Cuyahoga County Jail while strapped to a chair on July 16, 2018. Reports claimed she was restrained by several officers, including Idris-Farid Clark and Robert Marsh, after repeatedly asking to make a phone call. As Marsh began to strap in her left leg after strapping in her arms and upper body, Glass stretched her right leg. Marsh, in turn, punched her in the face, prompting Glass to begin kicking. Then Clark, who had been holding pepper spray the whole time, began spraying Glass from close range, even holding her head in place so he could continue to spray her. Clark sprayed Glass for six seconds at a distance of about six inches from her face. Almost one minute passed before Glass, whose face and chest was covered in orange, was wheeled out of the room.
Glass was being held at the jail for failure to appear in traffic court.
Watch the disturbing video here:
New body camera footage showed that after the incident, Glass, who suffers from asthma, screamed saying she was having trouble breathing and begging for help as other officers stood around her.
“I can’t breathe,” Glass said as she was being wheeled into another part of the jail, the top of her dress drenched in orange.
Though Clark and Marsh were indicted in April on charges ranging from felonious assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint, Glass filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Cuyahoga County and the two now-indicted officers.
“I do think about July 16, 2018 everyday,” Glass said speaking on for the first time on Wednesday. “What if I would have stopped breathing in their restraint chair? Why did they do this to me?”
According to Cleveland.com, the lawsuit alleged that when Glass asked why Clark pepper-sprayed her, he responded, “Because you talk too much.” The lawsuit goes on to say that after Glass pleaded with Clark to stop, he told her, “You shouldn’t [have] gotten smart.”
The lawsuit also claimed that after she was pepper-sprayed she was taken to a utility closet where she sat for several minutes before the pepper spray was washed off of her. When she was finally treated, there was a “deliberate indifference” on the part of medical staff.
Subodh Chandra, the civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit, noted other incidents at the jail that led to several deaths and showed a pattern of ““brutalizing incarcerated citizens, failing to properly train officers and coddling corrections officers who perpetrate sadistic violent acts against the people in their custody.”
SEE ALSO:
A$AP Rocky’s Family Asks Al Sharpton For Help Freeing Rapper Detained In Sweden
HBCU Puts Focus On Mental Health So Students Can Thrive Academically
