Charleston County will pay $10M to Jamal Sutherland’s family over his SC jail death

Caitlin Byrd
·3 min read

Charleston County agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Jamal Sutherland, a Black man who died inside the county jail in January after two deputies used pepper spray, forced him onto his stomach and shocked him repeatedly with Tasers.

Charleston County Council approved the settlement in a unanimous vote Tuesday evening, exactly 140 days after Sutherland died at the Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston.

During the meeting, Councilman Teddie Pryor said he met with the Sutherland family last week, where they prayed together and he promised them reforms would be coming in the wake of their son’s tragic death.

“We know that no amount of money will bring their loved one back, but I think this starts the healing process,” Pryor said.

“We want to start the healing process,” Pryor continued, “but that can’t start until we start facing the truth and facing what’s going on.”

The vote Tuesday coincided with the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose murder by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national reckoning over race and policing.

In recent weeks, during a steady drumbeat of demonstrations in Charleston, protesters have invoked Floyd’s death while demanding criminal charges be brought against the deputies involved in Sutherland’s death.

Sutherland was pronounced dead at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, after two Charleston County sheriff’s deputies forcibly removed him from his cell for a scheduled bond hearing. He was 31.

Graphic footage released earlier this month by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office shows the final moments of Sutherland’s life, a Goose Creek man with a history of mental illness.

Sutherland was booked into the Al Cannon Detention Center on Jan. 4 after an alleged fight at Palmetto Lowcountry Behavioral Health Center, a mental health facility where Sutherland was receiving care for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He was arrested by North Charleston Police.

During Sutherland’s encounter with the two jail deputies on Jan. 5, footage shows he was sprayed twice with pepper spray and shocked repeatedly with Tasers. Sutherland wailed in pain as he lay face down on the floor, at one point screaming for 34 seconds straight.

As he lay on the floor with deputies on top of him, their knees pressed into his back, Sutherland at one point can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe.”

The deputies involved in the incident were detention deputy Brian Houle and detention Sgt. Lindsay Fickett.

“He got tased about probably six to eight times at least,” Houle can be heard saying on body-camera footage released by the sheriff’s office.

Last week, more than four months after Sutherland’s death, both of the officers were fired.

The $10 million payout joins a growing list of settlements paid to family members following high-profile killings of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. By comparison, the city of North Charleston paid $6.5 million in 2015 to the family of Walter Scott, an unarmed Black man who was killed by officer Michael Slager, who shot eight times at Scott as he fled.

Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano in a statement released Wednesday afternoon said she hoped the settlement might provide the family “some measure of comfort in the midst of their grief.”

In addition to an investigation by the State Law Enforcement Division, Graziano has said her office is also conducting an internal investigation into what happened.

“To some degree, I have held back on public communications until I could be confident that they would not damage the integrity of internal and external investigations. I am committed to ensuring that justice can be obtained in this, and in all, matters,” Graziano said. “I have taken responsibility for this incident. This was a disastrous set of circumstances that led to the unfortunate loss of Jamal Sutherland.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Recommended Stories

  • Family of Jamal Sutherland, Black man who died in South Carolina jail, to get $10M settlement

    A prosecutor said last week her office is investigating to determine whether criminal charges are warranted in the death of Jamal Sutherland.

  • South Carolina county OKs $10 million jail death settlement

    A South Carolina county has agreed to pay $10 million to the family of a man with mental health issues whom deputies forced to the ground on his stomach and repeatedly shot with stun guns and pepper spray before he died in jail this January. The Charleston County Council voted Tuesday evening to approve the settlement for the family of Jamal Sutherland, a 31-year-old Black man who was booked into the county jail Jan 4. The agreement comes less than two weeks after county officials released video clips that show deputies attempting to take Sutherland to a bond court appearance the next morning.

  • U.S. Senate confirms Kristen Clarke as top Justice Dept. civil rights lawyer

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A divided U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Kristen Clarke to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, where she will oversee two high-profile investigations into possible patterns of police misconduct in Minneapolis and Louisville. Clarke, a longtime civil rights attorney and Justice Department veteran, was confirmed in a vote of 51-48 on the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

  • Tensions rise in Baghdad after arrest of militia commander

    The confrontation began after Iraqi security forces arrested at dawn militia leader Qassim Mahmoud Musleh based on a judicial investigation and arrest warrant on terrorism charges, Iraq's military said in a statement. The statement said he was being questioned by a joint investigative committee.

  • Uber signs driver bargaining agreement with major UK union

    Uber said Wednesday it's formally recognizing a major British trade union so it can represent drivers, a breakthrough for labor campaigners seeking fairer working conditions from the ride-hailing giant. The San Francisco-based company said it signed a collective bargaining agreement with the GMB trade union, one of the U.K.'s biggest. Under the agreement, the GMB will represent Uber's 70,000 drivers across the U.K. The drivers will still be able to choose if, when and where they drive.

  • Nigeria: Many missing feared dead after boat sinks in Kebbi state

    About 200 people were on the vessel and around 40 have reportedly been rescued.

  • Uber recognises union for first time in landmark deal

    Trade union GMB can negotiate for drivers after it was recognised by the ride-hailing giant.

  • US banks accused of failing the public during Covid

    Bank bosses were grilled by US lawmakers over worker pay and overdraft fees during the pandemic.

  • ‘Bomb Threat' That Justified Belarus Hijacking Came 24 Minutes After

    Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/GettyThe Daily Beast, in collaboration with the Dossier Center, has exclusively obtained the original bomb threat email Alexander Lukashenko now claims was sent by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, allegedly prompting his order to land a Ryanair jet carrying a dissident journalist in Minsk.But timestamps show that the email was sent 24 minutes after Belarusian authorities told the pilot and crew that they were transporting an explosive device as well as passengers.“Allahu Akbar” runs the subject line of the email, the sender of which was ahmed_yurlanov1988@protonmail.com. “We, Hamas soldiers,” the email continues, “demand that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip. We demand that the European Union abandon its support for Israel in this war. We know that the participants of [sic] Delphi Economic Forum are returning home on May 23 via flight FR4978. A bomb has been planted onto this aircraft. If you don’t meet our demands the bomb will explode on May 23 over Vilnius.”Journalist Snatched from Flight Faces Belarus ‘Death Penalty’Adding to the fact that the message was sent after the mid-air bomb theatrics unfolded, the sought-for cease fire referenced in the email had already taken effect on Friday, two days before this communique was sent out.The bomb threat, Lukashenko insists, forced the Ryanair plane carrying one of Belarus’s most prominent opposition journalists to divert to Minsk Sunday at the added insistence of a MiG-29 fighter jet, which “escorted” the aircraft to an impromptu landing. Conveniently, it also gave Belarusian authorities a chance to snatch a reporter accused of galvanizing anti-government protests last year.Roman Protasevich, the former editor-in-chief of the Telegram channel Nexta, is now in the custody of the KGB, as Belarus’s post-Soviet security service is still called, as is his Russian girlfriend Sofia Sepega. Both have “confessed” on camera to a slate of anti-government offenses in what were obviously coerced performances redolent of Stalinist show trials.No one seriously buys the bomb threat claim, much less its attribution to Hamas, whose spokesman Fawzi Barhoum categorically rejected the group’s involvement in a 21st century plane hijacking—one that was more likely orchestrated by a government intent on quashing opposition from its own civilian citizens.Having initially downplayed the episode on social media, both the European Union and Ryanair have now taken to calling this brazen intelligence operation a “hijacking” and “state-sponsored piracy.” President Joe Biden called the incident an “outrageous” and “shameful” assault on the free press. All EU-based air carriers have since halted flying through Belarusian airspace and banned Belarus’s state-owned Belavia air fleet from traveling to EU countries.Putin Invites Belarus Plane Hijacker for TeaOn Monday, the bloc agreed to impose sanctions on Lukashenko’s regime, as reports continue to come in about arrests and suspect disappearances of other independent Belarusian journalists, particularly those who, like Protasevich, covered last August’s stolen presidential election and resulting protest movement. Lukashenko has spent close to a year consolidating his 27 year-reign, while casting his opponents as “terrorists” themselves and forcing them into exile or prison.Protasevich, who has been detained on terrorism and espionage charges, could face the death penalty in Belarus. The original email Lukashenko is hanging his nutty conspiracy theory on is riddled with other inconsistencies that clash with the established timeline of events that led to the plane’s forced landing.The email was sent to Minsk’s National Airport’s general information account at 12:57 p.m. on May 23, 27 minutes after the plane first entered Belarusian airspace and 24 minutes after air traffic control in Minsk first informed the Ryanair pilot that an emailed bomb threat was “shared with several airports.” Dossier Center But the Greek Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for the plane that took off from Athens, has publicly stated that it received no such warning at any point during FR4978’s journey. Lithuania did receive the email, but not Vilnius Airport, the intended destination; rather, the recipient was State Enterprise Lithuanian Airports, the state-run company that handles three different Lithuanian airports (Vilnius, Kaunas, and Palanga). So while Lukashenko’s KGB pulled off an impressive coup in snaring a political prisoner via air privacy, its excuse leaves much to be desired. Leaving aside the fact that Hamas isn’t for blowing up commercial airliners, the identity it chose for a Hamas representative was bizarre. Ahmed Yurlanov?The genesis of the name Yurlanov, as it happens, is Russian, Bulgarian, Azeri and—Jewish.This investigation was done in collaboration with Dossier Center and Newslines.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • ‘Outer Banks’ creators call teacher’s copyright lawsuit ‘absurd.’ A judge dismissed it

    A North Carolina English teacher had accused Netflix and the show’s creators of stealing the story line from his self-published novel.

  • Seven-alarm fire blaze across multiple buildings in Boston

    Firefighters have had to climb onto the roofs of the buildings to fight the blaze

  • More than 150 people are feared dead after a boat capsized in Nigeria

    "Most of them are petty traders, food vendors and the local miners," the Governor's spokesman added.

  • A Southwest Airlines flight attendant allegedly lost two teeth after a passenger assault, and it illustrates a growing trend of unruly behavior on flights

    Southwest Airlines says a passenger was "verbally and physically abusive" toward a flight attendant over the weekend.

  • Tom Brady becomes GOAT of Twitter after using Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau memes

    Love him or hate him, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady continues to win Twitter.

  • Tom Brady becomes GOAT of Twitter after using Brooks Koepka-Bryson DeChambeau memes

    Love him or hate him, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady continues to win Twitter.

  • Trump Organization probe enters potentially ominous phase with grand jury convened

    Special grand jury marks a shift in Cy Vance's Trump Organization probe as possible evidence of criminal conduct may be presented.

  • Aaron Rodgers skipped Packers voluntary workouts and is gallivanting in Hawaii with Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller

    Aaron Rodgers appears to be enjoying life in Hawai'i.

  • How Distrust of Donald Trump Muddled the COVID-19 'Lab Leak' Debate

    Around this time a year ago, then-President Donald Trump and his administration started to pivot away from their early defense of China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Deploying patently anti-Asian rhetoric, Trump and his team started a systemic—and roundly condemned—campaign in April suggesting that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city in which it was first identified. Trump routinely referred to COVID-19 as “the China virus,” “the Wuhan virus” and even “Kung Flu.”

  • Johnson watches Indy 500 from sideline itching to get in car

    Jimmie Johnson was inside a sauna at 120 degrees and climbing as part of an hourlong sweat session prepping him to race on hot summer days. Johnson had never before attended any part of the Indy 500. Had rules permitted, he just might have kicked Tony Kanaan right out of his car.

  • Congresswoman mocks Marjorie Taylor Greene with flowchart of antisemitism

    Republicans and Democratic lawmakers have condemned the congresswoman’s comments