The family of a man who died from a head injury he suffered while being arrested near Augusta in 2021 has sued the Richmond County sheriff and four of his deputies.
Jermaine Jones Jr., 24, ran from a traffic stop on Oct. 11, 2021, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. A week later, he died in the hospital. After his death, the Richmond sheriff’s office asked the GBI to conduct an independent investigation.
More than a year later, Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jared Williams announced that no criminal charges would be filed against the deputies involved. Williams based his decision on the GBI’s report and a concurring report from an independent medical examiner.
The case is now part of a national investigation led by The Associated Press into police encounters using “less-lethal force.”
The incident began when deputies pulled over an SUV occupied by three men, including Jones. The driver, Jones’ uncle, consented to a search of the vehicle, but Jones tried to run away as deputies looked through the SUV, according to the GBI.
Jones suffered a head injury after he was hit in the back with a Taser and then tackled by deputies while running, the GBI said. He experienced a medical emergency and his condition deteriorated on the way to jail, so he was taken to the hospital instead.
In October 2023, Jones’ family members filed a federal lawsuit suing Richmond Sheriff Richard Roundtree and four deputies. The suit, led by Jones’ mother, Keyana Gaines, claims the deputies racially profiled Jones, used unnecessary force in his arrest and negligently delayed his medical care.
The lawsuit accuses deputies of simultaneously stunning Jones with a Taser and tackling him to the ground, which follows the GBI’s description of events. But the lawsuit also claims that one of the deputies punched or hit Jones in the head several times while his head was pinned to the ground.
According to the complaint, Jones’ emergency room doctor told his family it was “extremely unlikely that Mr. Jones’ fatal brain injuries were caused just by falling down after being tased, as they are much more severe than would be caused by a single fall.”
However, officials have not publicly released any records that show Jones was punched or struck in the head.
The autopsy report completed by the GBI and reviewed independently by Gwinnett County Chief Medical Examiner Carol Terry could not attribute Jones’ head injuries to any specific cause. Both said that after Jones’ hospital stay and multiple surgeries, there was no way for a doctor to tell if the fatal head trauma was caused by a Taser-induced fall, being tackled or being punched.
That lack of certainty about the source of the fatal blow was a factor in the district attorney’s decision to clear the deputies of criminal liability.
The lawsuit also claims the deputies took too long to get Jones the medical care he needed. Williams raised this concern with Terry. He mentioned that Jones seemed lucid after the injury before deteriorating and losing consciousness.
Terry wrote that this sort of deterioration was “consistent with blunt force head trauma.” In these cases, she said, the brain can swell and cause the patient to eventually lose consciousness, but the effect would not be immediate.
According to the lawsuit, Jones never regained consciousness. He was taken off life support Oct. 18, 2021.
The AJC has filed an open records request for the GBI’s full report on the use of force incident, which was not publicly released.
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