COLUMBIA, Missouri. – A Missouri man who died after he was placed in a spit hood and restrained in a Missouri prison remained motionless for nearly 10 minutes before a nurse checked on him, prison video released Tuesday shows.

Video of the final moments before Othel Moore’s death in December 2023 shows the 38-year-old black man gasping with a mask covering his face, his hands tied behind his back and his legs bound as a guard watches from the sidelines. of the cell.

Four former Jefferson City Correctional Facility employees have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. Charges against a fifth were dropped, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said.

A criminal complaint alleges that guards sprayed Moore with pepper spray, placed a mask over his face and left him in a suffocating position.

Moore’s mother and sister separately filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

Surveillance video provided by Moore family attorneys shows several imprisoned men stripped down to their boxers with their hands tied behind their backs as guards search their cells and their belongings on Dec. 8, 2023, the day he died. Moore.

While handcuffed just outside his cell door, a guard sprayed Moore with pepper spray, according to Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson’s office.

Video posted by Moore’s family shows him being taken away from the other imprisoned men. The guards held him by the arms as he knelt and eventually lay face down on the ground.

Guards then tied his legs and put a mask over his face before strapping him to a cart in a reclining position, the video shows.

While restrained, the video shows Moore rocking back and forth, but did not appear to have any problems with the guards.

The guards told investigators that Moore was not following orders to remain silent and that he spit at them, although witnesses said Moore was spitting pepper spray from his mouth.

The video shows that guards then took Moore to a locked cell, where he initially attempted to push himself to a more upright position before falling back into the reclined headrest.

His movements gradually decreased over about 20 minutes until he remained motionless, with his head drooping to one side.

A nurse arrived about 10 minutes after Moore went motionless, calmly took his pulse and moved his limp head. The nurse and another staff member briefly applied rapid compressions to his upper body before removing him from the cell.

The Moore family’s attorney, Andrew M. Stroth, said at a news conference Tuesday that prison staff acted “without a sense of urgency.”

In a separate statement, Stroth said the video highlights “the complete disregard for the sanctity of life, the deliberate indifference and lack of emergency medical care to Othel by medical personnel.”

Ten employees and contractors were fired in response to Moore’s death.

“We have taken and will continue to take necessary steps to mitigate safety risks for everyone at our facilities,” a department statement said in June after criminal charges were filed against several former employees. “We take seriously our responsibility to create the safest environment possible and will not tolerate behavior or conditions that jeopardize the well-being of Missourians who work or live in our facilities.”

Pojmann, in an email Tuesday, said body cameras are now in use at all of the state’s maximum security facilities.

Three of the former employees charged with second-degree murder in Moore’s death are scheduled to appear in court in January. A fourth faces trial on December 11.