Lawsuit: Death of Cedric Lofton caused by inaction, indifference of local governments

The killing of 17-year-old Cedric Lofton at a Kansas juvenile detention center was years in the making and the result of inaction and indifference by Wichita and Sedgwick County leadership, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed Monday.

Lofton’s foster father called 911 in September seeking mental health treatment for Lofton, who had been hallucinating and acting paranoid after the death of his grandmother weeks earlier.

Instead of taking Lofton for a mental evaluation, Wichita police initiated a physical altercation with Lofton, forced him into a straitjacket-like wrap device and transported him to the county’s Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center — “as punishment” — where an officer “intentionally falsified” an intake form to avoid getting Lofton the treatment he needed, said the lawsuit filed in federal court.

After Wichita police dropped off Lofton at JIAC, the county’s juvenile detention officers initiated another physical altercation with Lofton, tackled him and then restrained him in a holding cell. They held him down for around 40 minutes.

An autopsy report by the Sedgwick County Medical Examiner’s Officer ruled Lofton’s death a homicide caused by the prolonged restraint in the prone position.

If Wichita police and Sedgwick County had followed the recommendations in a 2016 inspection report by the Kansas Department of Corrections, Lofton would still be alive today, a civil rights attorney representing Lofton’s brother said.

The inspection report noted systemic deficiencies at the juvenile facility, including its inability to handle children with mental health issues, its need for training on de-escalation techniques and management of risk. The scathing inspection also cited the facility’s need for assistance in dealing with a Wichita Police Department “who too often dropped juveniles at JIAC’s door as a form of punishment while refusing any obligation to transport such juveniles for mental health treatment,” according to the court filing.

“Everything that happened in that report lines up precisely with what happened to Cedric,” Stroth told the Associated Press.

“Sedgwick County is aware of the lawsuit, but cannot discuss pending litigation,” Sedgwick County spokesperson Akeam Ashford said in an emailed statement.

City of Wichita officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

“He just wanted to make people happy, make music, put smiles on people’s faces,” Marquan Teetz said of his brother at a press conference Monday morning. “Every day, I just have to remember that he was sat on for 39 minutes and they watched him die, and I see no remorse from them.

“More than anything, we just want to see prosecution.”

‘There is nothing to suggest those agencies will change’

The lawsuit lays the blame for Lofton’s death on Sedgwick County government, the city of Wichita, five county juvenile detention officers and 10 unidentified Wichita police officers.

Named are detention workers Jason Stepien, assistant corrections staff supervisor at JIAC; Brenton Newby, senior corrections worker at JDF; Karen Conklin, corrections shift supervisor at JDF; Billy Buckner, assistant corrections shift supervisor at JDF; and Benny Mendoza, corrections worker at JDF. The lawsuit says Wichita city officials have refused to disclose the names of the police officers who responded to the Lofton call.

The Wichita Eagle sought interviews with the five county employees through a county spokesperson. He referred reporters to a Kansas City-based law firm, Case Linden, who will represent the county employees. The law firm did not return a phone call late Monday afternoon.

After Lofton’s death, county officials – the county manager, sheriff and district attorney – moved to further the narrative that Lofton posed a threat that justified corrections employees’ use of force.

Now-retired Sedgwick County Corrections Director Glenda Martens said her employees “acted well within the policy and the requirements of that policy” when they restrained Lofton on the concrete floor of a holding cell.

“There is nothing to suggest those agencies will change now,” the lawsuit says. “Cedric had not been dead long when Sedgwick County leadership made false statements and publicly painted this foster child as someone to be feared.”

In the immediate aftermath of Lofton’s death, Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter brought up the possibility of serious drug use by Lofton. “There is information that we have that Mr. Lofton may have ingested some illegal narcotics,” he said at a news conference three days after Lofton’s death.

“That is false, as Cedric’s toxicology report later showed,” the filing says.

The complaint is also critical of Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett, who it says later “gratuitously assured the public that the medical examiner’s conclusion of homicide did ‘not reflect a legal determination’ and therefore did not mean that JIAC officers were criminally liable.”

Bennett did not bring criminal charges against any government officials involved in Lofton’s death, saying the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law shielded them from criminal liability. He issued a 45-page report on his decision in January outlining why he could not bring charges.

The lawsuit calls Bennett’s report “a fantasy-riddled alternative narrative” and calls the seasoned prosecutor’s decision “at best, a misreading of the law and, at worst, a dereliction of duty — an excuse for not doing his job and charging the criminally culpable.”

“Kansas law in no way immunizes or absolves the JIAC officers of criminal liability, let alone the lesser civil liability standard at issue here, where JIAC officers used prolonged deadly force on a shoeless, shackled, and unarmed 135-pound teenager until he could no longer breathe and died,” the complaint says.

“At no point prior to his death were any of the JIAC officers in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury from Cedric,” the lawsuit says. “At the time they were purportedly ‘standing their ground,’ they were simply imposing their will on Cedric.”

Bennett declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The complaint also criticizes the response by Sedgwick County Manager Tom Stolz.

“The local government’s intransigence in the face of this tragedy is perhaps best encapsulated in the words of Sedgwick County Manager Tom Stolz, who long before District Attorney Bennett announced his charging decision, told his corrections division leaders that he ‘hope[d] our employees on admin[istrative] leave knows their leave is a formality and that we will vigorously defend them in this matter.’”

The Wichita Eagle has verified through a Kansas Open Records Act request that Stolz sent that email on Dec. 29, 2021, three weeks before Bennett issued his decision.

“If employees are doing their best in a situation and something bad still happens, the organization should defend them with vigorous defense,” Stolz said in an email statement Monday. “In the matter such as this, it is normal (formality) to put employees on administrative while facts are gathered to insure employees acted appropriately. This email was sent 3 months after the event and I felt confident the employees were doing their best with a really terrible situation after hearing initial facts and reviewing video.”

Activists express frustration at handling of case

On the same day Bennett publicly said he would not prosecute anyone involved in Lofton’s death, Sedgwick County and the city of Wichita announced a joint juvenile justice task force to examine the systems that failed the vulnerable teen.

In April, the task force produced a list of 57 recommendations, including dozens of proposed policy changes for the state foster care system, Sedgwick County 911, the Wichita Police Department and the county’s youth corrections system.

At a budget work session Friday, county staff indicated next year’s budget likely won’t include funding for a 24-hour mobile mental health response system or embedding a mental health professional in the 911 call center, as the task force recommended.

“For years and years and years, people mock task forces,” task force member Tracey Mason said at Monday’s press conference. “They mock them because no teeth come from them. Nothing comes from them. I listened to the first budget talk, and again, it’s a mockery of the task force. The city and the county asked for this task force, so they need to put every recommendation forward so this doesn’t happen again.”

The Wichita Police Department won’t provide the names of at least 10 officers involved in Lofton’s arrest.

“In most jurisdictions across the country, they tell you the officers’ names. They tell you who’s involved,” civil rights attorney Andrew Stroth said Monday. “Through the lawsuit, we will get that information through discovery. But just the fact that the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) and the city is hiding and not even disclosing — we want to know who those officers are. We want to know their backgrounds.”

Mary Dean, a local activist, attended the press conference with a sign that read “WPD Lied CJ Died,” referencing officers’ decision to change answers on the JIAC intake form that would have required police to take Lofton to a hospital for treatment.

Other activists’ signs expressed frustration and anger at authorities’ handling of the tragedy: “Anybody but Bennett #Justice4CJ,” “Mental Health Care Shouldn’t End In Murder” and “Charge the Murderers.”

Steven Hart, another civil rights attorney, said Lofton’s death must be an inflection point that spurs change and prevents similar tragedies.

“It’s windy here today,” Hart said. “My optimism tells me that I hope those are the winds of change. My optimism tells me that on a beautiful day like today, Cedric did not have to die in vain. Something good can come of this. Something good must come of this.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 10:23 AM.