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NC Jail Staffers Face Manslaughter Charges over Killing of Black Prisoner

HeadlineAug 11, 2020

In North Carolina, a nurse and five guards at Forsyth County Jail face charges of involuntary manslaughter over their roles in the death of 56-year-old African American prisoner John Elliott Neville last December. The incident began when Neville reportedly fell from the top bunk of his prison bed onto a hard concrete floor. Newly released video shows guards handcuffing Neville, placing a bag over his head and moving him to another cell. There, he’s hogtied and pressed face-first into the floor as he cries out for his mother and says “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times. After Neville becomes unresponsive, a nurse begins administering CPR. Neville died two days later in a hospital in Winston-Salem. An autopsy showed he was asphyxiated while restrained and suffered a brain injury after his heart stopped beating.

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