Missouri Muslim Prisoners Advance Suit Against Guards For Assault During Prayer
by Doug Ankney
On December 14, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted only part of a motion by defendant state prison officials to dismiss a complaint filed by Muslim state prisoners, who accused guards of beating and pepper-spraying them while they were praying at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center (ERDCC) nearly three years earlier.
On February 28, 2021, while the chapel was locked down under COVID-19 restrictions, prisoners Reginald Clemons, Steven Stafford, Wendell Harris, Montrell Moore, Pre’Marcus Howard, Mark Holliman, Vincent Hood, Mandell Kent and Michael Smith were in an “honor dorm” at ERDCC and engaged in one of five daily prayers their religion requires. This was not the first time they had done so, either. Stafford stood leading the prayer, reciting from the Q’uran, while the other Plaintiffs knelt near their prayer rugs.
At that point, Defendant Lt. Michele Basham allegedly walked past the group, as she had many times before. But this time she reentered the unit and ordered Plaintiffs to stop praying, insisting that “[t]here’s no praying outside the chapel.” Stafford attempted to quickly finish the prayer—Islam requires prayers to be completed once begun—but Basham used her two-way radio to issue a code 10-5 “officer in distress” call that is usually reserved for assaults on guards. Plaintiffs Kent and Smith then stopped praying and were permitted to return to their cells. But the remaining Plaintiffs were soon surrounded by approximately 20 guards, including Defendants Adam Simonton, Jacob Reagan, Gary Fenwick and Sgt. Carl Hart.
The guards “pointed fire-extinguisher-sized pepper spray cannisters at Plaintiffs,” their complaint recalled. Defendant Hart instructed the guards to fire and break up the prayer group. Hart, the complaint noted, had earlier been relieved of food delivery duty during Ramadan “after telling some of the prisoners that he had PTSD from having been ‘trained to kill Muslims in Afghanistan,’ [and] objecting that he now ‘ha[d] to feed these motherfuckers.’”
Plaintiffs Holliman and Hood stood and stopped praying when the pepper spray was pointed at them. Guards removed Holliman, who is white, out of the range of the pepper spray. But they did not remove Hood, who is Black. The guards then pepper-sprayed Plaintiffs at point blank range in the face, ears, nose, and mouth, after which they allegedly could not see or breathe. Stafford described feeling as if Hart “had poured boiling water over his face.” Plaintiffs were then allegedly dragged through snow and mud to segregated housing, where they were confined in cells without heat or running water and denied medical attention. Some were forced to use dirty toilet water to wash off the burning pepper spray, they said. They were also written major disciplinary infractions for “acts of organized disobedience by three or more offenders”— a charge usually reserved for riot instigators.
ERDCC’s gang task force came the following day to inform Plaintiffs that surveillance video revealed they had done nothing wrong and that the guards would be punished. But incredibly, instead of dismissing the disciplinary infraction, prison officials later found the prisoners guilty of “disobeying a direct order.” Plaintiffs filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of their First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights as well as pendant state law claims against numerous DOC officials.
Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The Court granted the motion as to Defendant DOC Commissioner Anne Precynth and other officials sued in their individual capacities; those claims were dismissed without prejudice to allow Plaintiffs to amend and sue them in their official capacities. The Court also dismissed, without prejudice, claims related to broken eyeglasses. It further dismissed with prejudice a state law battery claim against all Defendants except Hart and Basham because of a statute of limitations. The motion to dismiss was denied in all other respects, so the case remains open, and PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Clemons v. Basham, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222740 (E.D. Mo.).
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Related legal case
Clemons v. Basham
| Year | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222740 (E.D. Mo.) |
| Level | District Court |