5 former Missouri COs charged in prisoner’s death

By Summer Ballentine
Related Press

COLUMBIA, Missouri — Four Missouri correctional officers were charged Friday with murder and a fifth with aiding and abetting involuntary manslaughter in the December death of a man incarcerated at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, according to a complaint filed Friday.

A group of correctional officers making up the Department of Corrections’ emergency response team were searching one of the housing units for contraband on Dec. 8, 2023, when 38-year-old Othel Moore Jr. was sprayed twice with pepper spray and then placed in a spit hood, leg wraps and a restraint chair, according to a press release from Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson.

Moore was then moved to a separate housing unit, where he remained in the hood, bandages and chair for 30 minutes. Thompson said several people heard him say he couldn’t breathe. Moore was eventually taken to a hospital wing and pronounced dead.

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Thompson said the medical examiner determined Moore’s cause of death was positional asphyxia and his death was ruled a homicide. He confirmed the events were recorded by the prison’s video surveillance system.

“After sitting down and reviewing all the evidence, dozens and dozens of interviews and all the reports, we came to the conclusion that charges should be brought,” Thompson told the Associated Press.

The indictment accuses four correctional officers of one count of premeditated murder and one count of aiding and abetting second-degree assault. A fifth officer has been charged with aiding and abetting manslaughter.

According to Thompson, those accused of murder face ten to 30 years in prison.

Attorneys for Moore’s mother and sister filed suit against the officers and the Department of Corrections on Friday.

The Missouri Department of Corrections issued a statement Friday saying Moore died in a restraint system designed to prevent injury to himself and others, and the agency is no longer using that system.

The Department of Corrections also stated that following the completion of the criminal investigation and its own internal review, 10 of the people involved in the incident “are no longer employed by the department or its contractors.”

The department said it “will not tolerate any conduct or conditions that endanger the well-being of Missourians working or living in our facilities. The department has begun implementing body-worn cameras in detention centers at maximum security prisons, starting with Jefferson City Correctional Center, to strengthen both security and accountability.”

A voice message requesting comment from the prison officers’ union was not immediately answered on Friday.