A white Kansas sheriff’s deputy charged with murder in the death of an incarcerated Black person shoved his knee into the cuffed man’s back for 1 minute and 26 seconds after he was wheeled back to his cell from the infirmary, newly released court records show.
Richard Fatherly was charged last month with second-degree murder and an alternative count of involuntary manslaughter in Charles Adair’s 5 July death in the Wyandotte county detention center in Kansas City, Kansas. Adair had been arrested one day before his death on misdemeanor warrants for failure to appear on multiple traffic violations.
“The newly released affidavit confirms that Charles Adair was handcuffed, lying on his stomach with a severely injured leg, and posed no threat when a deputy pressed a knee into his back, resulting in his death,” Ben Crump, an attorney who is representing the family, said in a news release on Friday.
Fatherly has received a summons calling for him to appear in court next month but has not been booked into jail. His attorney has said he acted reasonably and will pursue an acquittal.
At the time, Adair’s leg needed to be amputated and was so badly infected that he was taken straight to the hospital, a Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent wrote in the affidavit. The court records were released this week following a request from the Associated Press and other news outlets.
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