SPRING HILL, Fla. — Julie Peters can’t help but smile when looking at photos of her late husband, Timothy Peters.
“He had the best smile,” Peters said.
On this day, she also has her computer open, and Peters' parents are listening in via a Zoom call. They wanted everyone to know how much they missed their son.
“Him and I talked every morning. He’d call me. We had a routine. We’d laughed. Started the day off just — I miss, I miss my boy. He did not deserve that,” said Tim Peters, Peters' father. The two share the same name.
The “that” his father is talking about is what happened inside the Hernando County Jail.
“I'm sorry,” Tim’s father said. “It angers me the way they did things, you know?”
The family said the 49-year-old had only been in trouble one other time.
“We have friends that are law enforcement officers. He respected the law,” Julie Peters said.
But in April 2022, Tim was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and battery on law enforcement. Deputies said he appeared intoxicated and was incoherent. His family says he had been on a drinking binge and was in the middle of a mental health crisis.
“That was not my Tim that was there,” Julie Peters said. His wife hoped he was being taken to a psychiatric hospital. Instead, he was taken to jail. After 48 hours in custody, she got a call from a hospital nurse.
“She kept saying, ‘You need to come now. You need to come now.’ What do you mean? I thought he was in the detention center waiting for me to bond him out. What do you mean he's in the ICU?” Julie Peters said.
At this point, all she wanted was answers.
“What I was originally told was that they were going to move him. He’d became agitated and they were going to move him from the cell that they had him into a more comfortable cell for, I guess, someone that was going through a mental health episode, agitated, very agitated,” Julie Peters said.
She didn’t know what really happened until 10 Investigates obtained video showing the events leading up to Tim Peters' death.
“I didn't know any of that until I had seen the video,” Peters said. “When I saw the full video, then, I just, I just couldn't believe it. I was just so angry, so angry and just, just so mad.”
10 Investigates uncovered Peters was not only pepper sprayed, but at one point, two spit hoods were put over his head.
“I was just yelling at the computer, do something for him, do something for him, help him out. I mean, you can tell he was in such an awful state, and it hadn’t, it wasn’t getting any better,” Julie Peters said.
She contacted attorney Thomas Robenalt.
“They come in and rather than give him any treatment, psychological treatment or medical treatment, they pepper spray him in the face, and it takes them three attempts to get the pepper spray directly into his face, and then immediately they put the spit mask on his on his head.
"What did they think was going to happen? You have to decontaminate an inmate after you pepper spray him before you put a mask over their head. It’s common sense. It's policy in every jail throughout the country,” said Robenalt, an attorney with the Robenalt Law Firm.
Robenalt is no stranger to jail deaths involving spit hoods. He represented the family of Daniel Linsinbigler in a multi-million-dollar settlement against the Clay County Sheriff. Linsinbigler died of asphyxiation.
“I thought the jail system would recognize what happened and take steps to protect inmates. But they just didn't. And there's no, there’s no uniform policies. That's what we need,” Robenalt said.
For Tim Peters, he says he just wishes the phone could ring one more time with his son on the other end.
“I just love Timmy so much. I miss him so much. All the conversation we that had every day. Every day we’d talk. I miss him so much. I don't know what else to say about it. I mean, I could think of a million things, but how do you sum up somebody's life in 5 minutes?” Peters said.
The Hernando County sheriff and 10 others are named in the 56-page lawsuit filed Thursday, claiming they violated Peters' rights under the 4th, 8th and/or 14th Amendments. Most of the claims involve excessive force — how he was pepper sprayed and not properly decontaminated and that the way he was restrained impaired the flow of oxygen.
Listed in the allegations, the lawsuit says:
"Plaintiff alleges that the conduct of each Defendant deprived Timothy Lee Peters of his constitutional right to life, and to medical and mental health care for his serious medical and mental condition(s) and needs and caused Timothy Lee Peters to suffer grievous physical and mental pain, suffering, anxiety, harm, and death while detained in the Hernando County Jail and under the direct and continuous custody, control, supervision, and care of the Defendants."
We reached out to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office about the lawsuit. A spokesperson told us, "We are unable to provide a comment on cases that are in litigation."