CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

'Something's got to get done': Mother of teen boy who died in custody calls for answers

Wichita Eagle - 9/30/2021

Sep. 30—Cedric "CJ" Lofton was supposed to turn 18 on Monday. Instead, he died at the hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning, two days after he was restrained and lost consciousness at a Wichita juvenile detention facility.

In an interview with The Eagle, Lofton's mother, Sarah Harrison, said she has no more clarity than anyone else about the circumstances that led to her son's death.

The official story — that Lofton became unresponsive while handcuffed in his cell after assaulting staff at the Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center — doesn't add up to her.

"The factors of it, it's just really unrealistic to me," Harrison said. "That's what's really tripping me out. How can you do that to a 17-year-old boy?

"I'm in shock and I'm really just overwhelmed. I can't believe you guys did this to my son," she said.

An autopsy was conducted Monday, but no cause of death has been announced. Results of a toxicology screening are also pending.

"The preliminary autopsy showed some scratches and a bruise," Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said at a Thursday news conference. "There's no life-threatening injuries that has been found as of yet."

At the news conference, officials refused to comment on the conduct of city or county law enforcement or correction staff, but Easter speculated that Lofton "may have ingested some illegal narcotics prior to the 911 call."

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the teen's death, said in a Tuesday release that Lofton attacked a JIAC staff member after being let out of his cell to use the restroom.

Correction staff then engaged "in a lengthy physical struggle" with Lofton "to get him into the holding cell and place him into handcuffs," according to the release.

"Once Lofton was under control, corrections staff were monitoring him and noticed he became unresponsive," it states.

Local pastor Maurice Evans, who set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for Lofton's family, said he finds it hard to believe that the altercation with corrections staff and the restraints used on Lofton didn't factor into his death.

"It has been presented by law enforcement that CJ somehow was fine and all of a sudden somebody noticed that he was unresponsive. But there is an admission that at one point, there was an extended handling of him to get him into a cell," Evans said.

"Was there excessive force and abuse used during that time? This is what we need to know. This is what the community is demanding to know. We need to see that footage. We need to understand what his condition was at all times."

The Wichita Police Department has denied The Eagle's open records request for police body cam footage; and the 911 call that led to Lofton's arrest have been denied, citing the open KBI investigation. Sedgwick County has not yet responded to The Eagle's open records request for any audio or video footage from inside the JIAC showing Lofton's interactions with corrections staff.

"If it was just a cut and dry situation like they say it is, then show it," Evans said.

Lofton's mother said the full story of his death must come to light, no matter how painful it may be.

"I'm deeply still grieving right now. I'm really hurt and upset about everything, but at the same time, something's got to get done," Harrison said.

She didn't get a chance to see her son in the hospital before he died. Harrison was in Houston for her own mother's funeral at the time.

In the last phone conversation she had with her son, he tried to console her as she grieved the loss of her mother.

"The last thing my son's telling me is, 'Mom, it's going to be OK. It's going to be OK. You're going to be all right,'" Harrison said.

She described CJ as a "happy kid" who aspired to be an artist.

"If he could make you happy, he would, because he made everybody laugh," Harrison said.

"He loved his music. Matter of fact, he had some music on YouTube that he was doing. He was ready to be an artist. He wanted to become something, you know, and to take that from him was the hardest part to deal with."

Lofton was a student at Wichita East High School. He lived with a caregiver at a house in the 1200 block of South Fox Run.

It was outside that house that Wichita police responded to a disturbance call at around 1 a.m. on Friday and found Lofton outside of the house "behaving erratically" and acting paranoid, according to the KBI release.

The officers spent "an extended period of time trying to convince him to voluntarily seek mental health treatment" but ended up trying to take the teen into custody after their attempts were unsuccessful.

Lofton "resisted by assaulting the officers" and after what the KBI described as a "physical struggle," the officers arrested Lofton on suspicion of four counts of battery of a law enforcement officer and transported him to the JIAC in a WRAP restraint system.

WRAP systems, which consist of a locking shoulder harness, leg restraints and ankle straps, are used on people who are thought to pose a risk to themselves or others.

Authorities said Monday that the device had been removed some time before Lofton lost consciousness. Wichita police spokesman Charley Davidson said the teen was "upright and communicating" when WPD officers left him at the facility and in the care of the JIAC staff.

"Why was he taken to juvenile intake and not to be evaluated for his mental health?" Evans asked.

He said this moment calls for transparency and accountability. Too many young Black men have died in law enforcement custody for people not to question the official narrative given by authorities, he said.

"A year ago, when I was out protesting with the young people, the response from the police and other people were, 'Well, this is Wichita. We don't have those kinds of problems," Evans said.

"And here we are."

This story was originally published September 30, 20211:20 PM.

___

(c)2021 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

Visit The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.) at www.kansas.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.