Newly released videos show John Neville’s fatal injury in an NC jail cell

John Neville’s pleas for help echoed through a jail cell.

“I can’t breathe,” Neville said, his voice ricocheting off the walls. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Help!”

A sheriff’s deputy answered him.

“If you can talk, you can breathe,” the deputy said.

But he couldn’t.

Held against the floor on his stomach, he begged to be rolled over, but deputies kept working at unlocking Neville’s handcuffs that restrained his arms behind his back.

What no one in the room knew was that Neville wouldn’t survive the injuries he sustained in the Forsyth County jail.

He would die two days later in a hospital.

The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office released videos Wednesday that show what happened to the 56-year-old Greensboro man on Dec. 2, 2019.

He pleaded with the deputies to let him up. He told them at least 30 times he couldn’t breathe.

But no one listened.

Six people charged

An autopsy report listed his cause of death as a lack of oxygen that led to a heart attack and brain injury from being held in prone restraint.

That technique of holding prisoners on their stomach with their arms handcuffed behind their backs and their ankles raised to their wrists is controversial across the country because of the number of deaths it has caused.

On July 8, 2020, seven months after Neville died, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill announced felony involuntary manslaughter charges against the six people involved: a nurse and five deputies.

O’Neill identified the people charged as Detention Officers Sarah E. Poole, Antonio M. Woodley and Christopher Stamper, Corp. Edward J. Roussel and Sgt. Lavette M. Williams. The nurse is Michelle Heughins.

The News & Observer, later joined by other media outlets, petitioned the courts on June 17 to release videos from the jail. Neville’s family and the sheriff eventually supported the videos’ release.

O’Neill fought against it.

O’Neill and Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough did not tell the public about Neville’s death. The Neville family requested that they not release information about his death to let the family grieve and to allow the State Bureau of Investigation to look into Neville’s death without input from the public.

“As the District Attorney, I opposed the release of the video because my job, unlike any other in the criminal justice system, is to ensure a fair trial for both defendants and victims, unencumbered by pretrial publicity,” O’Neill said. “I appreciate the Neville family acknowledging my efforts on their father’s behalf in pursuit of justice.”

On July 31, Superior Court Judge Greg Horne ordered the sheriff’s office to provide two of the videos to the media coalition by noon Wednesday and told the media outlets to blur out some of the footage. Horne said his decision was partially influenced by how long it took for the public to learn about Neville’s death.

Neville’s children called for peaceful protests Wednesday night and said their family is still grieving.

Together with their attorney, Mike Grace, they marched with protesters Wednesday afternoon following the video release and planned to attend a vigil downtown Wednesday night.

“Protests are good,” Grace said. “Protests are necessary.”

Grace, who is Black, said Winston-Salem has a history of protests to speak out against racism.

Grace said that though the video didn’t show anyone using racial slurs it also didn’t show anyone caring for Neville.

“Systemic racism is always there,” Grace said. “Detention officers deal with Black people at the worst times of their life. They don’t know that they have shown racism but it’s there.”

What the video shows

The video opens with Neville clad in a blue jumpsuit on his jail cell floor. A nurse runs her knuckles over Neville’s chest in an attempt to wake him up from what she described in the footage as a seizure.

Neville comes in and out of consciousness.

The nurse keeps telling Neville that he’s OK and telling him to calm down.

But Neville starts to panic. He struggles to get up, and deputies stop him.

“You had a seizure,” the nurse said. “They’re just taking care of you. They’re doing this so you don’t hurt yourself.”

Deputies tell him to stay down. Not to fight them.

“You’re going to be alright, buddy,” a deputy says. “You’re going to be alright. You’re having a bit of a medical episode here.”

The nurse takes his temperature and asks if he’s calm yet.

She asks if she can takes his blood pressure, but he doesn’t respond.

Neville looks at the nurse as the cuff is wrapped around his lower wrist.

“Let me up,” Neville yells.

He struggles with the deputies. He growls. He begins cursing.

His eyes widen with a look of confusion.

“We’re here to help you,” a deputy says repeatedly. “You need to stop.”

Neville is loaded in a wheelchair and onto an elevator and told that the nurse is going to check his blood pressure.

They wheel him to another room.

The nurse asks him if he knows where he is and he shakes his head.

Neville struggles, and the nurse is unable to get his blood pressure.

“Help me,” Neville shouts. “Help me, somebody.”

He’s wheeled into another room and told to relax as they try to remove him from the wheelchair.

They bring him into what is known as a suicide room, a single-occupant room that houses people who deputies worry might be at risk of killing themselves.

On the floor

Deputies lower him to the floor.

“Oh … my leg,” Neville cries out. “Help me!”

Deputies tell him they’re trying to get his handcuffs off.

“My wrists,” Neville shouts.

Neville keeps asking them to turn him over.

Neville’s energy declines. He takes deep breaths.

A deputy throws a key toward the camera.

“The handcuff broke,” the deputy says. “I need another one. It snapped off inside.”

Neville tells them again he can’t breathe.

“You’re breathing, because you’re talking and you’re yelling and you’re moving,” the deputy says. “You need to stop. You need to relax. Quit resisting us.

“The quicker you relax the quicker we will be out of here, man.”

Neville becomes quiet.

One deputy comes back with bolt cutters.

“Straighten his legs, flatten him out,” he says. “Sit on him. Sit on him.”

Neville remains still.

A deputy tries to cut the cuffs with the bolt cutters but they can’t break through.

A deputy asks each of the others if they’re OK.

“He’s not looking fine,” one says before a snicker is heard in the background.

Neville loudly moans.

A deputy tells him to relax while they try to find another set of bolt cutters.

One deputy asks if another needs a break. He says no.

“Whose cuffs are those?” A voice out of sight of the camera asks whose cuffs are on Neville.

A deputy says they are his.

The voice says, ‘That’s coming out of your paycheck,’” and the deputies laugh.

One deputy tells others he knows they’re enjoying holding down Neville before offering them a break if they need it.

They check to make sure everyone’s camera is on. One person says their camera won’t stay on.

A deputy asks Neville again if he’s good. He doesn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the man says.

New bolt cutters are brought. Someone says Neville is asleep as the deputies cut off the handcuffs.

Once the handcuffs are off, deputies are told to roll him over. All that can be seen of Neville is his feet. They aren’t moving.

A deputy continues giving instructions on how to roll him over.

He asks Neville if he’s alright. He doesn’t answer.

Someone off screen asks if Neville is OK.

“I can’t tell,” one deputy says. “Get emergency medical in here just to make sure.”

The nurse comes in for the second time in the videos.

She repeats his name.

Deputies tell him to wake up.

The room goes quiet before they start again.

“You guys killed him,” someone shouts. “You killed him.”

Wailing begins in the hall.

The deputies are led out of the room. The nurse peers through the window.

The nurse whispers to a deputy, who says, “I don’t know; I couldn’t tell.”

A deputy tells the team to come back. Four of them go back in.

Neville is turned to his side while the nurse checks him. The nurse lifts a stethoscope to Neville’s chest and his head falls toward the ground.

“Get an AED; I can’t hear his heart rate,” the nurse says quietly.

Deputies are directed to roll him on his back.

The nurse begins CPR and the video ends.

Family members said in a longer version they saw paramedics continue to work on Neville as inmates sang “Amazing Grace.”

Neville died two days later at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital.

Reform

On Tuesday, in a news conference ahead of the videos’ release, Kimbrough said “mistakes were made” and that he planned to name a portion of the jail after Neville.

He said when he watched the videos he cried.

He promised Tuesday to make changes in policies and training.

Christina Howell, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, told The News & Observer Tuesday night that the revisions included the addition of a clear duty to intervene and language about who assumes responsibility for making decisions regarding medical issues.

Grace said Wednesday that hearts and attitudes also need changing.

“Sheriff Kimbrough can put up all the changes he wants but until people can see all lives matter, Black lives matter, blue lives matter, they all matter, then it doesn’t matter,” Grace said.

The Neville children have said they want the use of prone restraint stopped and changes to training.

Grace said that offering to make changes is one thing but he wants to see action.

“Making one change is great, but if part of what should be done is done and the rest isn’t, everything else looks shallow and not genuine,” Grace said.

This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Newly released videos show John Neville’s fatal injury in an NC jail cell."