Did East St. Louis cop spray mace on sleeping, jailed teen? Authorities investigate

East St. Louis officials say authorities are investigating a 2019 video that recently surfaced showing a police officer entering a jail cell and apparently spraying a substance on a teen lying on a cot, causing him to repeatedly rub his eyes and jump around the cell in distress.

Jama Burries said her two sons were sleeping in the cell when the incident occurred. One of them, a 17-year-old at the time, is visible in the video .

“They were both in the same cell. He maced both of them,” she said. “The video shows my son jumping up and down, hitting the door. That’s what the other one was doing, too.. He sprayed both of them.”

Burries said her sons’ civil rights have been violated and is demanding the officers be held accountable. She said she was unaware of the video until she was contacted recently by a federal investigator.

East St. Louis officials confirmed that an outside agency is investigating, but would not identify it.

Video is an incident from more than two years ago

The date on the video is Oct. 3, 2019, and the time is around 6 a.m.

The beginning of the video shows an officer pulling something from his belt and opening the cell door. He reaches into the cell but a wall obstructs part of the view of what is happening inside. The officer then closes the cell door, and seconds later, the young man in the cell reacts in distress. The young man’s reaction is visible through a large window next to the cell door.

Another officer appears to glance into the holding cell at the juvenile while he is in distress and wiping his eyes. The other officer is not shown giving any aid to the juvenile She turns away and appears to be talking to someone at a counter across from the cell.

The BND obtained a copy of the video, which has been circulating in law enforcement circles in recent weeks. Nobody seems to know why the video surfaced now or who started circulating it. It appears to be a video of surveillance footage.

The video surfaced at a time of labor strife and other tensions in the police department, including an officers-union vote of no confidence in department leaders, a decision by two unions to no longer represent police officers and jailers, a protracted fight over officer pay raises and a state and federal investigation into an alleged police beating.

An outside agency is investigating

City officials will say little about the video. East St. Louis Police Chief Kendall Perry and City Manager Carlos Mayfield said in separate interviews that they were made aware of the video in recent weeks.

Perry said it’s “being investigated,” but would not name the investigating agency.

“We have to wait and see what the investigation reveals,” the chief said. “I have no further comments at this time.”

Mayfield said the incident “ is being investigated by an outside third party,” but would not identify the agency.

Contacted by a BND reporter, Rebecca Cramblit, spokeswoman for the FBI in Springfield, said, “Per our policy , we cannot confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”

Asked whether his office was investigating, Steven Weinhoeft, who was outgoing U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois at the time, said, “We are not commenting on the case at this time.”

The Illinois State Police are not investigating, said Melaney Arnold, an agency spokesperson.

Mayfield vowed that anyone in the video who violated the law would face discipline. At least three city police officers can be seen in the video. He did confirm that all three were veteran officers.

He declined to discuss further details.

Other people who have seen the video and were contacted by the BND expressed outrage over it. None of them would comment on the record for fear of retaliation, including possibly losing their jobs.

Perry and Mayfield could not provide a time frame for when the investigation would be concluded.

Police have been at center of controversies

The investigation of the 2019 incident is the latest in a string of controversies related to the East St. Louis Police Department over the past year.

In March, the police union, in an 8-5 vote, approved a motion of no confidence against Perry and Assistant Chief Onourio Eiland. Fifteen other union members did not participate.

They filed a list of about a dozen grievances against the two department leaders, including that they have created a hostile work environment, violated the union contract and unfairly disciplined officers, among other complaints. Mayfield, the city manager, expressed confidence in the chief and said there were no plans to replace him.

The no-confidence vote came at a time when officers continued to wait on a retroactive 2% pay raise that was negotiated in 2019. The contract provides for the annual raises to be retroactive to the start of 2016. A court-appointed arbitrator last year ordered the city to pay the raises, and the city said it would.

As of March 14, the officers had received the raises they had been fighting to obtain for years, but were still awaiting retroactive back pay for the years 2016-2019, according to sources. Over the course of the BND’s reporting on the pay issue, individual officers said they feared being quoted by name in the coverage for fear of retaliation.

In the midst of the pay dispute, the Illinois Labor Relations Board approved a Fraternal Order of Police petition to decertify East St. Louis Lodge 126, which represented the city’s sworn officers with a rank of sergeant and below. Some members of Lodge 126 had accused FOP representatives of making “back-door deals” and signing off on them without a vote of the membership.

Also in March, a former Belleville man alleged that he was severely beaten by an East St. Louis police officer during an arrest. East St. Louis officials said they investigated the man’s complaint, but would not release results, pending an investigation by Illinois State Police. State police referred questions to the FBI, who acknowledged the incident but would neither confirm or deny that it was investigating.

Mother asks why officers didn’t protect her sons

Burries, mother of the young men in the cell, is upset that she is only now hearing details about the incident in the jail. She said she wonders why it has taken so long for the video to be uncovered and how it started circulating.

She said the officers in the video should be held accountable.

“The officer who maced my sons reached in his pocket or already had something in his hands. He put it through the door and sprayed my sons. It doesn’t make any sense for him to do that to them. He is supposed to be a police officer,” Burries said.

“The other officers in the video are aware of what he did and they didn’t do anything, not even make a complaint or say anything to him. People are supposed to be able to look up to the police for protection and they do something like this. It pisses me off.”

Burries said her sons should not have been held in jail in the first place.

She said her sons and daughter were passengers in a car that police determined had been stolen. Everyone was taken to jail, but her kids were never charged and were released the following day.

She said when he was released, her younger son had his shirt around his neck and was constantly wiping his face and complaining about burning and pain. Her other son also was rubbing his eyes and complaining he was maced.

Burries said that at the time, she thought they may have tried to run when officers stopped the stolen car and that officers had sprayed them. Since seeing the video, however, she said she now knows that’s not what happened.

Burries said she watched the video for the first time when a federal agent arranged to meet with her at Cahokia Heights Village Hall and showed it to her.

She is thankful to whoever is responsible for the video surfacing now because she believes this would have been covered up forever.

“If the video was captured on an in-jail camera, why wasn’t the footage reviewed? Whose job is it to check the jail videos?“ Burries said.

This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 12:11 PM.