The daughter of a man who died in a Tennessee jail last year claims in a federal lawsuit that he was asphyxiated while being held on his stomach as one officer answered his cries that he couldn’t breathe with, “You shouldn’t be able to breathe.”
On Thursday, Nashville television station WTVF-TV posted video of the moments leading up to the death of William Jennette. The Associated Press has filed public records requests for the video on Friday, but Marshall County and the city of Lewisburg did not immediately respond to the requests.
The video shows a group of officers, both Black and white, holding down Jennette, who was white, in a prone position as he struggles. He is handcuffed first, then his legs are restrained in cuffs. Then officers then fold his legs up and pin them to his buttocks. Jennette says he can’t breathe, and an officer identified in the complaint as Marshall County Sheriff’s Deputy Kendra Burton tells him, “You shouldn’t be able to breathe” and calling him by an expletive.
Dominique Jennette sued the two municipalities and seven officers in October, claiming the officers violated her father’s constitutional rights because they used excessive force and failed to protect him.
In court filings, the officers deny that they acted improperly. A response from Marshall County says officers “did not use force other than was necessary to gain control as he fought, bit, kicked, and struggled against being detained.” The officers, in separate filings, claim immunity from prosecution. They also say they acted in self defense and in defense of their fellow officers. Attorneys for Marshall County and Lewsiburg did not immediately respond to phone messages left for them on Friday afternoon.