Family seeks jailer punishments after beaten inmate's death

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The parents of a Black man who was having a psychotic episode and died in custody last fall after Memphis jailers punched, kicked and kneeled on his back during a confrontation are seeking answers for their son and punishments against the jail staff.

At a news conference in Memphis on Friday, 33-year-old Gershun Freeman's mother said her son had “a lot of dreams, a lot of admiration” and cared for people. Kimberly Freeman said she wants justice for her son and wants to know who the jailers are.

“They have blood on their hand,” Kimberly Freeman said. "They go home every night to their family. Whereas for me and my granddaughter, we have to see my son, her father, in a box.”

Gershun Freeman's father, George Burks, added that he wants to see the officers "punished, brought to justice.”

The Nashville District Attorney’s Office released video earlier this month of Freeman at the Shelby County Jail in Memphis.

The video shows Freeman was beaten by at least 10 corrections officers Oct. 5 after he ran naked from his cell. His attorneys say he was also struck with handcuffs, rings of jail keys and pepper spray cannisters.

Freeman had “psychosis and cardiovascular disease and died of a heart attack while being restrained,” Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said in a statement earlier this month, citing the medical examiner’s report.

Prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who is representing Freeman’s family, deemed the case “another video of an unarmed Black man being killed by law enforcement here in Shelby County, Tennessee.”

The city has been roiled by Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating by Memphis police in January. The Black motorist was punched, hit with a baton, kicked, and pepper sprayed during an arrest that was recorded on video. His death led to...