Federal prison guards appear to have acted within policy when they deployed pepper spray on inmate Jamel Floyd in 2020 in an incident that ended with his death, an inspector general concluded.
But the audit did say there was a striking lack of clarity in the Bureau of Prisons’ policy on when pepper spray should be used and a bizarre lapse in renewing Floyd’s prescription for an antipsychotic medication.
Investigators also said there was a paucity of video evidence to evaluate the jail cell encounter with Floyd that preceded his death.
Floyd had been smashing the sink in his cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, and officers believed he had also removed a metal bar and broken his cell window when they deployed the spray, then opened the door.
Floyd charged them and they took him down to the floor, where he became unresponsive and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the Justice Department’s inspector general said.
Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against the guards, and the inspector general said it found no case to be made for administrative penalties.
“The OIG was unable to conclude that the use of OC spray on Floyd violated BOP policy which provides that a warden or designee can approve the use of OC spray, and a shift lieutenant may authorize the use of OC spray in situations that require an immediate response in the absence of higher-level approval,” the audit concluded.
Floyd’s family filed a civil lawsuit last year. The case is still in the discovery phase.
The incident took place on June 3, 2020, as the country was engulfed in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Jamel Floyd had been admitted to the jail in October 2019.
He had been resistant to taking his antipsychotic and antidepressant medications in early 2020, but he had gotten them renewed for a 30-day trial on May 1. The antidepressant was renewed on May 31, but the antipsychotic wasn’t renewed until June 2.
That meant he missed two days of medication, but investigators said the amount of the drug in his system at the time of his death was still within the effective dosage window.
Whatever the reason, he was “extremely agitated” on June 3 and had smashed the sink in his cell, leaving water flooding from the room. A supervisor ordered pepper spray deployed through the food hatch in his cell, then the door was opened.
Investigators said one officer remembered Floyd crawling out while two others remembered him “charging out” of the cell.
An autopsy concluded that Floyd’s death was accidental, with a cardiac arrhythmia due to cardiovascular disease with a complicating gene mutation that made arrhythmia more likely when drugs were taken. The medical examiner had found traces of a synthetic cannabinoid in his blood.
Investigators said they were unable to figure out how it got there, but said they found no evidence guards had snuck it into the facility.
