Feb 15
2024
AG launches probe after inmate death ruled homicide
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The New York Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into the August death of an Erie County Holding Center inmate that’s been ruled a homicide.
Shaun Humphrey, 52, died at Buffalo General Hospital on Aug. 15, one week after an encounter with guards, according to a press release from the attorney general and Ashley Isaac, Humphrey’s daughter.
Humphrey appeared to be having a seizure, then became combative with guards who placed him in a prone position to apply handcuffs, according to the attorney general’s press release. He was taken to the hospital after becoming unresponsive, according to the attorney general.
The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Humphrey’s death a homicide, according to Melissa Wischerath, Isaac’s lawyer. His death certificate gives the cause of death as “asphyxia due to a prone position with compression of torso,” Wischerath said.
The sheriff’s office has not publicized Humphrey’s death. It isn’t clear when the medical examiner’s office reached its conclusion.
Isaac said a sheriff’s detective told her that Humphrey was placed in the cell at 9:15 p.m. the day before the fatal encounter, which occurred at 12:30 p.m.
“The detective called me shortly after [the incident], and that was when he told me it appeared my dad had suffered a seizure and had gone into full cardiac arrest,” Isaac said. “He then told me that because they assumed it was either a seizure or maybe some type of possible overdose that they had Narcan’d him two times. And it was after they had Narcan’d him that he became aggressive, but that was a symptom of being Narcan’d.”
Narcan is a drug administered nasally or via injection to reverse overdoses.
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Isaac said her father had no history of seizures and was in good health. The death is described, preliminarily, as a suspected overdose on a database of jail deaths maintained by the attorney general’s office. It’s not clear how the attorney general obtained that information. The incident was captured on video, according to the database.
It isn’t clear what charges Humphrey was facing. Isaac said she hadn’t known that her father had been arrested. She said she saw an appearance ticket taped to the wall of her father’s hospital room that showed a charge of menacing, a crime that typically involves doing something that places a person in fear of harm.
Under state law, the attorney general investigates jail deaths to determine whether guards or other law enforcement officers were responsible.
Sheriff John Garcia did not respond to an interview request, but sent a written statement to other media outlets declining comment. He wrote that the sheriff’s department and the attorney general’s office have been conducting a “joint investigation” pursuant to state law.
The law cited by Garcia, however, says that the attorney general “shall conduct a full, reasoned and independent investigation.”
Deaths from asphyxia after struggles with law enforcement officers have drawn scrutiny in recent years.
The potential for suffocation when a person is prone and weight is applied to their back has long been known. In 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a bulletin cautioning law enforcement officers to be careful.
“The use of maximal, prone restraint techniques should be avoided,” the department wrote. “If prone positioning is required, subjects should be closely and continually monitored.”
The danger is heightened by alcohol use, drug use, an enlarged heart or obesity, according to the bulletin.
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“The risk of positional asphyxia is compounded when an individual with predisposing factors becomes involved in a violent struggle with an officer or officers, particularly when physical restraint includes use of behind-the-back handcuffing combined with placing the subject in a stomach-down position,” according to the bulletin, which recommended that people handcuffed while prone be taken off their stomachs as quickly as possible.
A finding of homicide doesn’t necessarily mean a crime was committed.
In Springfield, Illinois, for example, the coroner’s office three times since 2010 has ruled deaths homicides when the cause of death was asphyxia due to restraint, once when sheriff’s deputies hogtied a prone man, a second time when a jail guard put his weight on a prone inmate and a third time when a prone person on a stretcher was strapped down by paramedics. Only in the third case were criminal charges filed.
According to a 2020 investigation by television stations in Denver and Minneapolis, at least 107 people since 2010 have died after being restrained by law enforcement officers while lying prone. Criminal charges were rare, according to the report, but lawsuit settlements cost taxpayers more than $70 million.
Seven inmates since November 2021 have died who were under jurisdiction of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the downtown holding center and the county correctional facility in Alden, according to the attorney general’s jail death database. Ages ranged from 44 to 78.
Three cases have been closed, with the attorney general finding no fault with guards or other law enforcement officers. Three are being assessed to determine whether full investigations are warranted. Humphrey’s is the only case since November 2021 that has resulted in a full investigation by the attorney general.
Since 2005, 37 inmates under custody of the sheriff’s office have died, according to the attorney general’s database and media reports.
“I was devastated”
Humphrey once played professional lacrosse for the Buffalo Bandits, his daughter said. He owned construction companies and likely was inspired by his mother, who operated bulldozers and other heavy equipment, Isaac said.
“He was almost six foot five,” Isaac said. “He had the biggest hands you could ever imagine.”
When she was in her early teens, Isaac said, she and her father were watching television and saw a program listing the best schools in Western New York. One was Casey Middle School in Williamsville.
“At that point, he decided I was going to go to the best school,” Isaac recalled. “We got in the car, found Casey Middle School and he bought a house across the street.”
After two years at Casey, Isaac said that she and her dad returned to the Cattaraugus Seneca Territory, where her father bought land on a hill and built a house. Except for electrical wiring, he did all the work himself, from finishing concrete to plumbing to carpentry.
“His home has the best view of the territory, hands down,” she said.
Humphrey never was afraid to speak his mind, particularly on Seneca Nation politics, his daughter said. He ran unsuccessfully for tribal president in 2012, telling the Buffalo News that he would end a tradition of vote-buying, close independently owned smokeshops and establish a smokeshop owned by the tribe.
Isaac said that her children were her father’s first love. He built a full lacrosse box, complete with two goals, at his house for her three sons, she said.
“My dad took so much pride in their sports,” Isaac said. “I am a single mom with four children. When my dad was here, I never felt like a single parent.”
Ashley Isaac, daughter of Shaun Humphrey, says she wants answers about her father’s death. Photo courtesy of Humphrey’s family.
Isaac said the sheriff’s office told her that she couldn’t see her father for the first 24 hours he was at the hospital because he still was considered an inmate.
“I was devastated,” Isaac said. “When your loved one is fighting for their life, the first thing you want to do is be there.”
When she was allowed into her father’s ICU room, Isaac said she was heartbroken.
“It was horrible,” she said. “He was convulsing really, really bad.”
Isaac said her father never regained consciousness. After six days, a doctor told her that he would never recover. That was on her mother’s birthday. She said she waited a day before disconnecting life support.
Several times, Isaac said, she asked for medical records from the hospital. She said she got them in January. A week ago, on her daughter’s 13th birthday, an envelope from the funeral home arrived. Her daughter picked up the mail after Isaac and her kids got home from a birthday dinner out.
“I just assumed it was an updated bill for services,” Isaac said.
It was her father’s death certificate, stating that he died from asphyxiation and was a homicide victim.
“I fainted — I collapsed to the ground,” Isaac recalled. “My children — my daughter, on her 13th birthday — had to pick me off the ground.”
The next morning, Isaac said, she called a sheriff’s detective she’d spoken with earlier about her father. She said she also spoke with his supervisor. The detective, she said, knew about the homicide finding.
“They couldn’t even pick up the phone and tell me,” Isaac said. “I had to call them, and even then, they were on the defensive. I see the word ‘homicide’ on there. It’s in black and white. You guys can’t lie about it anymore. I feel like I’ve been lied to for six months.”
Isaac said she wants to know the names of guards who tried handcuffing her father, and she wants to see video of the incident.
“I want answers,” Isaac said “I want answers for what happened to her dad.”
Humphrey is buried at the home he built himself.
“It was his pride and joy,” Isaac said. “It’s an amazing view.”
