Authorities used a Taser on Jerod Draper seven times in 15 minutes — then he died.
The severe beating of Tyre Nichols is very difficult to watch. But it's important to do so. While watching, I wondered: If body cam footage didn't exist, would five officers still have been charged with second-degree murder? |
In the months leading up to the release of the Nichols footage last week, I watched another brutal video, one that captures a very different set of circumstances but the same failure of people in power to do their duty to protect. |
Draper was detained in a jail in Harrison County, Ind., when a corrections officer and nurse used a Taser on him seven times in 15 minutes. Officers say they believed Draper was a danger to himself and had placed him in medical isolation wearing a suicide smock. They say the Taser was used in an attempt to make Draper comply with commands from the officers. |
Those 50,000 volts of electricity surged into Draper while his face was covered by a spit hood, which visibly filled with blood. All four of his limbs were tied down in a restraining chair as he was jolted with electricity again and again. He was naked. He couldn't move. And then he died. |
Draper hadn't even been charged with a crime yet. |
The shockingly inhumane event was captured on a CCTV camera in the jail. I've watched the footage dozens of times. The images continue to haunt me. |
But we felt that they were important to share because no criminal investigation came from Draper's death. A county prosecutor reviewed the CCTV video and declined to file charges against those involved. |
If horrifying video doesn't trigger accountability, what does? |
That's the question Mirpoorian raises in the film. This CCTV footage, along with deposition hearings and interviews with Draper's family, friends and lawyers and journalists who reported on the incident, shines a light on the devastating consequences of authorities' failure to protect people in their custody, even those who are supposedly in a safe place. |
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