Newly released surveillance footage shows the moment police arrested Detention Facilities Oversight Board member Janis Mensah inside a St. Louis jail, according to local reports.
Mensah visited the City Justice Center on Aug. 31 in response to the death of a detainee, identified as 55-year-old Terrence Smith, KMOV reported Friday. Smith was facing murder charges and had been in jail since January when he died from a medical emergency, according to the Riverfront Times.
Mensah is a member of the Detention Facilities Oversight Board, which is tasked with overseeing conditions and operations inside jails. Mensah went to the jail in late August to inquire about the details surrounding Smith’s death. Specifically, Mensah wanted to look at the jail’s surveillance video from that day, according to KMOV. (RELATED: Three Fulton County Jail Officials Step Down After Death Of Inmate Allegedly Left In Unsanitary Conditions)
City law dictates that members of the Detention Facilities Oversight Board “shall be provided access to City detention facilities at any time upon notice to the Commissioner and without conditions or requirements as to the timing or form of such notice,” the outlet reported.
The law also dictates that Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah give written notice to the board as to why Mensah was allegedly denied access to the footage.
Jail staff were reportedly uncooperative and told Mensah to leave. Officers forcibly removed Mensah from the building after at least an hour, KMOV reported, citing surveillance footage obtained and shared by the outlet.
“They ripped me from the bench that I was sitting on and threw me to the ground. That’s the period where I began to lose consciousness,” Mensah told the outlet. Mensah’s legs appear to go limp in the surveillance video, and footage obtained by the Riverfront Times appears to show him slumped over outside the jail.
Mensah is now facing charges of trespassing and resisting arrest, according to KMOV.