Nearly a year and a half after the controversial death of a man while in police custody at Mount Pleasant, state officials cleared police and crime county paramedics.
On March 10, the SC Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to the State Law Enforcement Division stating that there was “insufficient evidence to merit criminal prosecution” in James Britt’s death.
The 50-year-old Mount Pleasant man died in a hospital on October 16, 2019, about 2 and a half weeks after being arrested by police and injected by county SME paramedics with ketamine, an anesthetic commonly used in medicine. human and veterinary and also injected as an illicit drug.
Police officers were called to a report of a man urinating on a Mount Pleasant road and found that Britt did not cooperate when they arrived, according to a police incident report. After a while, a fight broke out and the cops held Britt face down on the floor for 15 minutes.
According to the police report, paramedics injected Britt with 500 mg of ketamine, the maximum dose allowed by county guidelines.
Rescuers kept Britt face down on the floor for another three to four minutes before he went unconscious, according to the report. His heart stopped briefly when he was being transported in an ambulance and he never regained consciousness.
“The results of the SLED investigation support the city’s position that our officers acted legally, professionally and appropriately,” said Mount Pleasant officials in a written statement issued to the Post and Courier. “We are pleased that this matter, together with the civil case handled by our insurance company, is resolved.”
A Charleston County spokeswoman declined to comment on the closure of the case.
For Andy Savage, a lawyer who represented one of the officers involved and Greg Carney, a county paramedic who injected Britt with ketamine after officers asked him to administer the drug, the closure of the case shows that police and emergency medical professionals acted within. the limits of your training and existing regulations on the use of the drug.
But the case still raises questions, said Savage.
“I think that while the SLED investigation fortunately did not lead to any additional efforts against those who were present that day, it does bring to the public’s attention the potential for ketamine misuse,” he said. “What the case did was to get everyone’s attention that perhaps a more restrictive use of ketamine would be appropriate.”
Savage said he expects county officials to reevaluate when and how ketamine should be used.
“Originally, the concept was to use ketamine as an alternative to physical strength,” he said. “On paper it looks good, but maybe they didn’t assess medical complications in a certain situation where there was a person in Mr. Britt’s physical condition. What looked good on paper may not have been good in practice.”
Savage also said the case continues to have an impact on police and paramedics, like Carney, who were involved in the call.
Carney, an experienced and decorated paramedic, has not returned to work, said the lawyer.
In September 2020, city officials agreed to resolve a wrongful death order and pay $ 3 million to Britt’s family. Your widow and son will receive money from the South Carolina Municipal Insurance and Risk Fund – $ 2.7 million for the claim for survival and $ 300,000 for the claim for manslaughter. The family will use a third of the money for attorneys’ fees, the records show.
Catch up Gregory Yee at 843-323-9175. Follow him on Twitter @GregoryYYee.