17-year-old’s death in custody ruled a homicide by Sedgwick County medical examiner

An autopsy has determined that a 17-year-old foster child who died after being restrained in a Wichita juvenile detention facility was killed.

The Sedgwick County medical examiner ruled Cedric “CJ” Lofton’s death a homicide, saying in an autopsy report that the teen died from “complications of cardiopulmonary arrest sustained after physical struggle while restrained in the prone position.”

A partial narrative of events from early Sept. 24 included in the autopsy report indicates Lofton had been lying face down for as many as 39 minutes when juvenile facility staff realized he had no pulse. The document says he was shackled and handcuffed.

Lofton, who was 5 foot 10 and 135 pounds, died at a Wichita hospital two days later.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett’s office will decide whether anyone involved will face criminal charges.

“When a charging decision has been finalized, the public will be notified,” Bennett said in a prepared statement Monday. The statement said the office is reviewing the autopsy “as well as the lengthy investigation conducted by agents with the Kansas Bureau of Investigations and investigators with the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department.”

The corrections employees involved in the case “have been placed on paid administrative leave pending results of the District Attorney’s investigation,” Sedgwick County government said Monday through a spokeswoman. Nicole Gibbs said county officials would not comment further, citing an active investigation into the teen’s death.

She would not answer questions about the number of staff members involved, their job titles or employment dates.

The KBI’s investigation is ongoing, agency spokeswoman Melissa Underwood said Monday. She did not know when the information would be turned over to Bennett’s office for review. The KBI investigates all in-custody deaths in the state’s jails and prisons unless there is a clear medical or natural cause.

After Lofton died, officials publicly said he had sustained no apparent life-threatening physical injuries that immediately pointed to a cause of death. They suggested that he may have used illegal narcotics before his encounter with law enforcement and corrections staff. They also mentioned that he had a bruise and some scrapes.

Lofton’s autopsy was performed at the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center the day after he died, but the report showing the medical examiner’s findings was not finalized and released to the public until Monday in part because officials were waiting for the results of toxicology testing. Such screenings, which test for the presence of illicit drugs and other substances, can take several weeks to complete.

Lofton tested positive for carboxytetrahydrocannabinol, which forms in the body after cannabis consumption, and a beta blocker called esmolol, but nothing else, according to his autopsy report.

During a Sept. 30 news conference, Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said the teen may have used a synthetic form of marijuana called K-2 sometime before his foster father called 911 early on Sept. 24 to report that Lofton was experiencing mental distress.

The teen had run away from his foster home on Sept. 21 and showed back up there shortly before his foster father contacted authorities for help, saying the teen was having a mental breakdown and thought people were trying to kill him.

He was taken to the county’s Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center, 700 S. Hydraulic after he allegedly battered Wichita police officers who responded to his foster father’s home. Authorities have previously said he also assaulted staff at the intake center.

The autopsy report gives additional details about the timeline leading up to the moment Lofton became unresponsive while in custody. Authorities have so far refused to publicly release video footage of his interactions with Wichita police officers and intake center staff.

In the days after Lofton’s death, The Eagle asked for a copy of all video footage that shows Lofton’s interactions with law enforcement and corrections staff on Sept. 24. At the time, Sedgwick County spokesman Akeam Ashford said 28 video clips from a single feed inside the intake center existed, but he denied the open records request by email, citing an “ongoing criminal investigation.”

The Eagle’s open records requests for 911 call information and Wichita Police Department body camera footage were also denied.

Authorities have previously said Wichita police were sent to Lofton’s foster father’s home, in the 1200 block of South Fox Run, at 1:07 a.m. after the foster father called 911. Officers spent much of the next hour talking to Lofton in an attempt to get him to go with them willingly.

At 2:32 a.m., officers bound Lofton’s legs with a department-approved WRAP restraint, put him in handcuffs and took him to the county’s Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center. There, he was booked at 2:44 a.m. on suspicion of four counts of battering a law enforcement officer over his interactions with police at the Fox Run address, authorities said previously.

Citing video footage taken inside of the intake center facility, the autopsy report says that after Lofton arrived at the facility in the WRAP restraint and handcuffs, he was placed in a cell at about 2:45 a.m.

The restraints and handcuffs were then removed.

A little less than two hours later, an intake center staff member opened Lofton’s cell door and let him out into the lobby.

Authorities have previously said staff allowed him out of the cell to use the restroom.

While in the lobby, Lofton approached the staff member, who motioned for another to enter the area, the autopsy report says.

Lofton then became “uncooperative and agitated,” the report says. At 4:26 a.m., two staff members grabbed Lofton’s arms.

Lofton shook his right arm free and “punched one of the staff members in the head,” the report says.

Authorities have previously said Lofton allegedly assaulted the staff member when the staff member tried to escort him back to his cell.

The autopsy report says the two staff members struggled with Lofton and restrained the teen in “a nearby room” with the help of others. They secured shackles around his ankles at this time.

Lofton was moved to the floor at 4:33 a.m. and “rolled to the prone position” during which time he continued to struggle against staff.

According to the report, Lofton was handcuffed behind his back at 5:08 a.m., 35 minutes after he was forced to lie on the floor.

The autopsy report says Lofton calmed down after being restrained with the handcuffs and started “making occasional snoring sounds.”

Four minutes later, corrections staff realized the teen — who was still lying face down — didn’t have a pulse, the autopsy report says.

Intake center staff immediately rolled Lofton onto his back but still were not able to find his pulse. They also did not receive any response from the teen when they performed a sternal rub, a practice that involves firmly pushing on the center of a person’s chest, usually with the knuckles of a closed fist, to elicit a reaction from patients who are not alert and are verbally unresponsive.

A minute later — at 5:13 a.m. — staff began chest compressions and called for rescue personnel.

After performing life-saving measures, first responders found Lofton’s pulse, and he was taken to the hospital, according to the autopsy report.

Authorities said previously that emergency medical services personnel arrived at the intake center at 5:24 a.m. and took him by ambulance to Wesley Medical Center at 5:53 a.m. after working on the unresponsive teen for 29 minutes.

Lofton died at the hospital at 1:55 a.m. Sept. 26.

The autopsy report says Lofton’s hospital treatment was complicated by a brain injury caused by lack of oxygen, respiratory failure from fluid buildup in the air sacs in his lungs, and his kidneys suddenly not functioning properly.

He also had tested positive for COVID-19 and was suffering acute bronchopneumonia, both of which may cause difficulty breathing.

Progeny, a local youth justice organization seeking incarceration reform, has been pushing for transparency in Lofton’s death investigation since September.

“Cedric was a young person in crisis whose life was tragically taken, instead of being met with compassion and support,” the organization said in a statement Monday. “We cannot continue to fail our youth in Kansas by leaving them with nobody to call during a mental health crisis, and we cannot allow another young person to lose their life when they just needed help. “

An informational sheet provided to The Eagle in September by the county about operations at the Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center says use of force against youth there is rare. According to the sheet, staff had used mechanical restraints — handcuffs or leg restraints — on youth only twice since January 2020. The center averages 1,850 intakes of children ages 10 to 17 a year.

The sheet also says no child had been injured in the facility at the time, and that center staff “shall use force only when all other less restrictive methods of behavior control have been attempted and failed, to protect the youth from injury, to prevent injury to others or to prevent escape.”

Lofton had been living with a foster family in Wichita after becoming the subject of a child in need of care case in Junction City in 2019, authorities said in September. Minor drug use, minor criminal activity and a failure to follow mental health recommendations contributed to his placement in state custody.

This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 12:40 PM.