BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — Timothy Peters died while in the custody of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. 10 Investigates had questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and requested jail surveillance video from the day he died.
We were denied.
So, when Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said Peters' name during a news conference just days after our request, 10 Investigates took notice, especially when clips of that surveillance footage were released.
“His name was Timothy Peters,” Nienhuis said. At the press conference, the sheriff released some clips.
“He was examined in the emergency room prior to being booked,” Nienhuis said. “When he was booked into jail, he was immediately placed into our medical wing.”
They say about 48 hours later, Peters acted irrationally and refused to take a dose of medicine.
“That followed not long after with him having some issues with bodily functions. There is bodily fluids. I think both if I'm not mistaken vomit but definitely excrement and probably some urine on the floor, making the floor extremely slippery,” Nienhuis continued.
They say to help keep him under control, Peters was pepper sprayed.
“A spit hood was placed on his head to keep any projectile vomiting or spitting or anything like that from impacting the deputies. I think it's important to know that these are not thick pieces of cloth. They are very, very sheer, and even if wet, they should allow air to pass through,” Nienhuis said.
Afterward, decontaminating Peters from pepper spray, deputies pull him out of the shower.
"You see that there was a second spit restraint, because the first one had gotten damp, either from excrement, feces, things like that, or, you know, the shower. So they were trying to replace that about the time that they realized that there was some issues with Mr. Peters," Nienhuis said.
The sheriff told reporters it was about 21 minutes from the time deputies removed him from his cell to when he was unconscious.
The clip that was released was a video we were first told we could not have because it was exempt from disclosure by Florida law. The video displayed at the news conference was edited down. It was just 9 minutes. We asked for the entire unedited version, which we were denied until our lawyers got involved.
More to the story
We watched that entire 21 minutes and had more questions. We went through the video, as well as internal affairs interviews with deputies.
The investigator asked deputies about the spit hoods, at one point asking one of them: “Do you remember clean split, bloody spit?”
One of the deputies replied: “It was, it was a lot of like everything.”
After that deputy was asked if he was wearing a hood in the shower, the deputy replied, “Yes. We put a second one on him because it had blood on it.” While another deputy mentioned, “At first, two were put on, and then we brought it down to one. Because you're not supposed to have two on there.”
We also found the sheriff’s office investigative summary regarding Peters’ death. In the report, the medical examiner noted she was going to be ruling this as a homicide since the inmate was wearing a "spit sock."
The sheriff denied our interview request but did allow us to interview Shelby Bishop, the assistant director of medical services for the Hernando County Detention Center.
The jail nurse has only been at the jail since February, so she wasn’t present during Peters’ case but did say she could speak on jail policy regarding spit hoods.
“It’s a case-by-case basis. It's not something that gets put on every patient. But it is something that we need to be able to protect ourselves, protect our deputies protect the patient themselves from harming us,” Bishop said.
But what about a second spit hood?
“Studies have shown that it really doesn't show any significant changes in vitals. If it is necessary, then yes, if it's necessary, again, it's a case-by-case basis,” Bishop said.
Prior to our interview, the sheriff’s office had forwarded 10 Investigates a copy of the study she mentioned. Researchers at the University of California San Diego studied 10 healthy people who knew what they were signing up for.
The study also mentioned researchers did not replicate certain cases including when a person is agitated, restrained on the ground or when other bodily fluids are contaminating a spit restraint device, such as blood or emesis — vomiting.
We also asked Bishop whether or not she has seen any studies where pepper has been sprayed and then a spit hood has been used.
“No. But I can tell you that our policy that they do get what's called decontaminated prior to having the spit net placed,” Bishop said.
But in the video, that’s not what happened in Peters' case.
“Policy should be informed and shaped by incidents in the field. But, but at what cost?” said Roy Bedard, a former law enforcement officer and now a consultant for police and corrections departments. “It's difficult, sometimes I think, to imagine scenarios that it really takes the real world to show you this can happen because we're not creative enough sometimes to think about the things that might happen. And so our policies tend to fall short.”
When it comes to spit hood policies in the state, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told us they don’t have one. When we reached out to agencies in our area, those who used spit hoods had policies that varied. The Polk County Sheriff's Office told us their policy is to use common sense.
“Sometimes they're placing it over people's heads, and the person starts to vomit. Or they're spitting out blood, and then they can choke on their own blood or their vomit and that can cause them to asphyxiate or die,” Neil Gehlawat said. He’s represented families in cases from Washington to New York where spit hoods were used and people died.
“Any police officer you talk to if they're interacting, somebody who's done something wrong, the goal is to safely take the person into custody, not to kill the person. And if there are apparatuses or things that are being used, that are doing this, they need to be better educated about that,” Gehlawat said.
We also asked FDLE back in March for the number of cases here in Florida where someone has died and a spit hood was involved. By mid-October, we still had no answer, so we started researching. That’s when we found Valerie Linsinbigler. She wanted to talk about her son, Daniel.
'He didn't deserve to die'
“He was an awesome kid. He was such a sweet little boy,” Linsinbigler said.
She says that the boy got into some trouble later in life and ended up in the Clay County jail and 10 days later, he was dead. The medical examiner listed Daniel’s death as a homicide. The cause: asphyxia.
“He didn't deserve to die,” Linsinbigler said.
Daniel was one of the five cases in the state 10 Investigates uncovered where a spit hood was used and a person died.
“It's just a form of torture. It really is. I mean, I mean, if he's, he wasn't even spitting, he couldn't even breathe," Linsinbigler said. "They didn't even decontaminate before they put the hood on him, you know, they just sat there and let him because I guess he was telling him, I can't breathe, I can't breathe.”
Investigations by the sheriff’s office, FDLE, and the state’s attorney found no wrongdoing. But the Clay County Sheriff’s Office paid Valerie and her family a multi-million dollar settlement. She says she was surprised to hear spit hoods are still being used inside jails.
“Yes, because something was supposed to change. You know, in Daniel’s name,” Linsinbigler said.
Back in Hernando County, investigations into Timothy Peters’ death also found no wrongdoing. The medical examiner finalizing the report — the cause of death undetermined. The internal affairs investigation recommended modifying its spit mask policy to not allow the use of multiple masks unless “exigent circumstances” are involved.
“The policy is the policy. And if they have to, if they have to vary from that for whatever reason, that emergency that will be evaluated. We're always looking, evaluating our practices and looking for the best and safest way to do things,” said Denise Moloney, a spokesperson with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.
The Clay County Sheriff did change their policy after Daniel’s death that two could not be used together. A death in the Brevard County jail also resulted in their change of policy to match Clay County’s policy. Our law enforcement expert says FDLE really needs to make a universal policy on spit hoods that’s used the same way in every agency as well as universal training.