The wife of a 72-year-old man who was beaten to death in an Alabama jail is suing three corrections officers who allegedly ignored her husband’s pleas for help when his cellmate attacked him.
Regene Brantley-Reed filed the lawsuit on Jan. 28, alleging that three sheriff’s deputies failed to protect her husband, John Reed, during the attack and provide him proper medical attention during his overnight stay at the Macon County Jail.
According to the complaint, Reed was booked into jail on Oct. 21, 2024, after being arrested for driving under the influence.
At 8 a.m. the next morning, he called his wife to ask her to pay his $285 bond.
Reed, a 72-year-old military veteran who used a cane and a motorized wheelchair and needed around-the-clock oxygen assistance for lung disease, was placed into a holding cell with a 24-year-old cellmate that same morning.
At some point, the cellmate began threatening and attacking him, the suit obtained by Atlanta Black Star states.
Reed called for help from the three deputies on duty — Patsy Roberts, Ricky Cox, and Henry Pace — but they did not respond, the complaint states. However, a jail trustee and other deputies heard Reed’s cries and went to the holding area.
Roberts, Cox, and Pace also visited the cell at some point and saw Reed with visible injuries, but they “failed to intervene or deescalate the violent situation” and provide medical assistance, the lawsuit alleged.
When Reed’s wife and his mother arrived at 8:45 a.m. to bail him out, they were told the bondsman hadn’t arrived yet.
At 9:30 a.m., Reed’s cellmate resumed his attack, repeatedly hitting and kicking Reed, ultimately killing him, according to the complaint.
An hour later, Reed’s wife saw an ambulance, fire trucks, and police arrive at the jail. When she went inside, Macon County Sheriff Andre Brunson told her that her husband had been killed.
Her suit alleges that no deputy was supervising her husband or his cellmate and refused to provide medical assistance during the attack.
Reed’s cellmate, 24-year-old Daniel Pollard III, was serving a 20-year sentence for attempted murder and burglary, with five of those years to be served in either jail or prison.
He’s now been charged with Reed’s murder.
Pollard’s attorney told WTVM that Pollard suffers from severe mental health issues.
“In 17 years of criminal law, this is probably one of the worst cases I’ve ever had in the sense of mental health,” attorney Jennifer Tompkins said.
The suit states that Reed was “beaten so viciously” that his wife was unable to recognize him.
The injuries Reed sustained were so severe that his wife had to show the funeral director photos of him to reconstruct his face.
“It was just so unexpected and so crazy how it happened that sometimes I can’t even get a grip on it,” Brantley-Reed said.
“It shocks the conscience,” said attorney Bakari Sellers, who is representing Brantley-Reed. “Failing to place a frail and disabled man like John Reed in protective custody is bad. Putting him in a holding cell with a violent criminal is worse. But to know he’s being beaten, to know his life is at risk and do nothing is beyond inexcusable.”
The suit alleges the deputies violated Reed’s 14th Amendment rights and forced Reed to suffer unconstitutional conditions of confinement and displayed a deliberate indifference to his medical needs.
