Four Missouri Prison Guards Charged With Murder In Death Of Othel Moore Jr

Justin Leggins, Jacob Case, Aaron Brown, and Gregory Garner are all charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of being an accessory to second-degree assault.

On June 28, four Missouri prison guards were charged with murder, and another was charged with accessory to involuntary manslaughter, regarding the December 2023 death in custody of a Black incarcerated individual.

Othel Moore Jr was pepper-sprayed, had his face covered by a mask, and was left in a position that enabled him to suffocate while he was in custody.

Moore, a Black man, died in the custody of a group of guards who made up the Department of Corrections Emergency Response Team after members of the group pepper sprayed him twice and put him in a spit hood, leg wrap, and restraint chair. Moore was moved to a housing unit where he was left for 30 minutes, and according to Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson, several people heard Moore say he couldn’t breathe before he died in a hospital wing at the facility.

According to Andrew Stouth, an attorney for Moore’s family, racist abuses are commonplace in both the Missouri Department of Corrections and the Jefferson City Correction Center. Stouth told NBC News, “There’s a system, pattern and practice of racist and unconstitutional abuse in the Missouri Department of Corrections, and especially within the Jefferson City Correction Center. It’s George Floyd 3.0 in a prison.”

Justin Leggins, Jacob Case, Aaron Brown, and Gregory Garner are all charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of being an accessory to second-degree assault. Another guard, Bryanne Bradshaw, is charged with one count of accessory to involuntary manslaughter.

According to the complaint, Leggins and Case pepper sprayed Moore, and Brown placed the mask over Moore’s face. Garner and Bradshaw, meanwhile, left him in a position that created asphyxiation. According to Thompson, the four officers charged with murder could face between 10-30 years in federal prison.

A copy of the lawsuit filed by Moore’s mother and sister describes the Department of Corrections Emergency Response Team as “a group that uses coercive measures to brutalize, intimidate and threaten inmates,” and lawyers for Moore described what happened to him as the result of “a barbarous pattern and practice.”

“This attack on Othel Moore, Jr. was not an isolated occurrence, but rather the manifestation of a barbarous pattern and practice, fostered by the highest-ranking members of the Missouri Department of Corrections,” Moore’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.

According to the Missouri Department of Corrections, they identified ten people who they claimed are “no longer employed by the department or its contractors.”

In addition, the department said it would institute body cameras and other reforms moving forward, “The department has begun implementing body-worn cameras in restrictive-housing units at maximum-security facilities, starting with Jefferson City Correctional Center, to bolster both security and accountability.”

His family, meanwhile, mourns the loss of their son and brother. His sister, Oriel Moore, told NBC News that not being able to see her brother outside of a prison setting, after his childhood, compounds their grief.

“He won’t get to live his life. He doesn’t even know what it is to be a grown man because he’s been in there since he was a kid,” Oriel said. “He had plans. He wanted to be a productive member of society. He matters. His life matters.”