Former Walker County jailer agrees to plead guilty to misdemeanor in Tony Mitchell’s death
A former Walker County Jail officer has been indicted and agreed to plead guilty in connection with the death of inmate Tony Mitchell.
Braxton Chase Kee, a 23-year-old Jasper man, admitted to repeatedly kicking Mitchell’s arm out of the way as jailers tried to close his cell door after giving the inmate a cup of water, according to court records.
The misdemeanor federal indictment against Kee was made public Thursday, making him one of more than a dozen employees charged in the abuse and neglect of Mitchell.
A judge still has to accept the plea. A court date has not yet been set.
Mitchell was arrested Jan. 12, 2023, during a mental health welfare check at his home. Authorities said he fired a gun while deputies were on his property.
Deputies responded that Thursday afternoon to Lost Creek Road near Carbon Hill on a welfare check after family members of Mitchell feared he could harm himself or someone else.
On the day he was arrested, Mitchell covered himself in black spray paint and claimed to have a “portal to hell.”
Mitchell, authorities said, was compliant, obeyed commands, and posted no threat of harm to the officers, himself or anyone else other than to continue to “mutter” his delusional comments.
At one point, according to the plea agreement, Mitchell “stiffened momentarily” but did not pull away or make any aggressive moves toward law enforcement.
Despite his compliance, records state, deputies threw Mitchell to the ground and kicked him with boots in the genitals.
Former Deputy Carl Carpenter has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights. Former Deputy Matt Handley is also charged with civil rights violations and lying to a grand jury.
Mitchell died two weeks after his arrest.
Anthony “Tony” Mitchell (Facebook-Justice for Tony Mitchell)
Subsequent court documents have detailed the horrific conditions of his time in the jail and death.
The county coroner’s death certificate listed Mitchell’s manner of death as homicide and listed the causes as hypothermia and sepsis “resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”
According to Kee’s plea agreement, he was working the nightshift at the jail during the two weeks that Mitchell was incarcerated.
Records state Kee, from his earliest interactions with Mitchell, believed that Mitchell was mentally unwell because he frequently wasn’t lucid, often didn’t eat his food and regularly appeared to be covered in feces.
Kee, according to his plea agreement, became sufficiently concerned about Mitchell’s condition and raised the issue with the captain and others, but said the medical staff appeared to be avoiding Mitchell because the treatment did not change.
“Defendant Kee believed that the nursing staff was uninterested in helping or examining (Mitchell.) Instead, Kee believed the nurse practitioner was working hand-in-hand with the jail command staff to mistreat (Mitchell,” records state.
On Jan. 19, 2023 – a week before Mitchell’s death – Kee and another unnamed jailer took Mitchell a cup of water. As they were leaving, Mitchell reached his arm out of the cell.
Kee repeatedly kicked at Mitchell’s arm to move it. A supervisor then tried to move Mitchell out of the way.
Mitchell remained naked and barely moving on the floor for several minutes until the lieutenant dragged him back into the cell and shut the door, “returning (Mitchell) to the cruel and inhumane conditions of confinement where he would continue to suffer for nearly a week.”
On the morning of Jan. 26, 2023, the day Mitchell died, Kee checked on Mitchell and called the jail captain, seeking permission to call an ambulance for the inmate.
The captain told Kee to call the nurse practitioner instead, and she told Kee and other jailers they could wait to send Mitchell to the hospital.
Kee did not call an ambulance himself because he feared he would be fired if he did not follow the nurse practitioner’s directions, the plea agreement states.
“As such, defendant Kee did not take reasonable steps at reasonable times to alert appropriate authorities about the objectively harmful conditions of (Mitchell’s) confinement,” according to records.
“Instead, he sought to avoid scrutiny from Jail managers by joining others in the jail who permitted (Mitchell) suffer from the cruel conditions.”
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