Watch: Metro-east cop pepper-sprayed sleeping juveniles as other cops looked on, feds say
Two former East St. Louis police officers pleaded guilty to federal civil rights offenses Thursday in connection with an incident in which two juvenile jail detainees were pepper sprayed as they slept.
The former officers are Vincent Anderson, 61, and Jason Boyd, 51.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Springfield Office is investigating the case.
The incident happened on Oct. 3, 2019, as two juveniles detained by the East St. Louis Police Department were sleeping in separate cells at the city jail, according to court documents.
“At that time, ESLPD Officer Jason Boyd banged on the glass of the juveniles’ holding cells, but the juveniles did not wake up,” according to a release from the U.S. Justice Department. “ Boyd took pepper spray out of his holster in view of the other officers — including an ESLPD supervisor, Captain Vincent Anderson, stepped into one of the locked holding cells and pepper sprayed one of the sleeping juveniles.
“The other officers — including Anderson — watched Boyd spray the juvenile and did nothing to stop him despite their duty to intervene in an unreasonable use of force.”
Boyd and another officer, who was not named, decided to spray the second juvenile as well, documents state. Boyd sprayed the second sleeping juvenile, and none of the other officers nearby, including Anderson, did anything to stop Boyd, the release states.
“ Further, none of the officers acted to obtain care for the juveniles, despite the officers’ duty to obtain necessary medical care for detainees,” the release states.
In U.S. District Court on Thursday, Boyd and Anderson each pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor civil rights violations. Boyd’s charges were for ``use of unreasonable force against the juveniles” and Anderson’s were for failure to intervene when Boyd was using unreasonable force, the release states.
The BND first reported the pepper spray incident in a June 16, 2022, story titled `Did East St. Louis cop spray mace on sleeping, jailed teen? Authorities investigate.’ The video of the incident that happened months earlier had just surfaced, and East St. Louis officials said an outside agency was investigating. The officials would not identify the agency.
In the video, a police officer is seen entering a jail cell and spraying a substance on a teen lying on a cot, causing him to repeatedly rub his eyes and jump around the cell in distress. A local woman told the BND at the time that her two sons were in the cell.
“They were both in the same cell. He maced both of them,” she said in the interview “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.”
At least three officers can be seen in the video.
Other people who had 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.
Sentencing hearings for Anderson and Boyd are scheduled for July 23. A U.S. District Court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The announcement about their guilty pleas were made by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe for the Southern District of Illinois and Special Agent in Charge David G. Nanz of the FBI Springfield Field Office.
Trial Attorney Erin Monju of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section is prosecuting the case with support from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois.
This story was originally published April 11, 2024 at 1:24 PM.