Family of CJC detainee who died after being placed in restraint chair demands video of incident,

By Cameron Bopp and Morgan Harris Published: Jul. 21, 2025 at 10:33 PM CDT

ST. LOUIS (First Alert 4) - The family of Samuel Hayes Jr. is demanding answers after the 31-year-old detainee died over the weekend after an incident at the St. Louis City Justice Center (CJC).Hayes’ mother, Anita Washington, says she has yet to see critical evidence of what happened to her son.“My son died Saturday night, and tonight is Monday evening going into Tuesday, so where are the videotapes? Please release the videotapes, so we can let this case close,” Washington said.

A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) said Hayes was involved in a fight with his cellmate around 8:20 p.m. Saturday night. When he refused to comply with commands, staff placed him in a restraint chair. By 10 p.m., he was found unresponsive at the CJC. Hayes was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:40 p.m. SLMPD’s Force Investigations Unit (FIU) was notified at 11:35 p.m.

“We weren’t notified until 2, 3 a.m. Sunday,” Samuel Hayes Sr. told First Alert 4. “I’m not sure what took so long, or what happened in the time he was put in that chair.”The medical examiner is working to determine the cause of death.

SLMPD’s FIU is reviewing the case, as is protocol with in-custody deaths at the CJC, building a minute-by-minute timeline and reviewing who had contact with Hayes in his final hours.“That timeline is crucial,” SLMPD spokesperson Mitch McCoy said at a news conference Monday. As the timeline is pieced together, McCoy says, “there were no physical external signs of trauma to [Hayes’] body” when detectives arrived to the hospital.

Attorney John Picerno, who represented the family of 21-year-old Marquis Wagner after his 2021 death in a restraint chair at the Jackson County jail, says these incidents are not uncommon.“It’s not surprising. Sadly, this goes on more often than we think it goes on,” Picerno said. “The number one red flag is the inattention from the staff to the needs of the inmate. There is protocol to follow, often a number of times the detainee needs to be checked on and monitored, and it’s oftentimes not followed.”“Nobody catches it until it’s too late,” Picerno said.

Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, who has long pushed for greater jail oversight, says another death at the CJC raises serious questions.“I was a little disheartened, you know, another death in the jail. But I also have questions about how this death happened,” Aldridge said. “How was he restrained? Did he have medical issues? How did he go from alive, to restrained, to unresponsive and eventually dead?”

By First Alert 4’s count, this marks the 20th in-custody death at the CJC since 2020.Hayes was awaiting trial for the 2024 shooting death of Bryan Boyle, with a court date scheduled for August 4. Washington says the family has hired an attorney and will continue to push for the release of surveillance video and full transparency into her son’s death.First Alert 4 is told SLMPD’s FIU will allow the family to view surveillance video of the incident in the near future.

Rev. Darryl Gray, chairperson of the Detention Facilities Oversight Board (DFOB), gave First Alert 4 the following statement:“DFOB will be meeting next Tuesday to discuss the incident and how we plan to move forward with an inquiry. We have invited the commission of corrections and a representative from St. Louis Police Department to meet with the DFOB to give us an update on their inquiries and investigations. The DFOB has requested that our staff complete an inquiry into the in custody death as soon as the forced investigative unit completes their report.”The jail commissioner’s office did not respond to First Alert 4’s requests for policy/procedure on use of restraint chairs as of the publishing of this story.