JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A day after announcing Mississippi County Sheriff Cory Hutcheson had been removed from office, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley visited the Mississippi County Jail Thursday to see the site where an inmate, Tory Sanders of Nashville, Tenn., died during an altercation with law enforcement last week.
Hawley, speaking at a press conference Thursday afternoon in Jefferson City, Mo., said his office was going to "conduct a full and vigorous investigation until we know what happened and we will take all appropriate steps there after until justice is done."
Hawley, along with Missouri Department of Public Safety Director Drew Juden, traveled to Charleston Thursday morning to speak in person with highway patrol investigators and "to see for myself the site of the events that occurred Friday night that we are now investigating vigorously."
At Thursday's press conference, Hawley gave a detailed account of Sanders' movements from when he left Nashville to the time of the altercation.
Hawley said Sanders left his home in Nashville sometime on May 4 and later that day his car ran out of gas near Marston, Mo. He then hitched a ride with a motorist to the Sikeston Walmart where received a money wire transfer from his brother.
Later that evening, Sanders had made his way to Charleston, Mo., where he approached police officers at a convenience store, confused to where he was.
The following day, at 11 a.m., Sanders again approached Charleston police officers where he signaled to the officers he was in some sort of distress and asked to see a counselor.
"He also told Charleston police officers at this time that there was a warrant for his arrest from Nashville, related to an altercation that Sanders had been in before leaving Nashville involving the mother of his children," Hawley said.
Officers took Sanders to the Mississippi County Jail where they checked the status of his warrant.
"Upon checking the warrant, the Charleston police learned that he was not extraditable, which means that law enforcement was not asked to detain or send Mr. Sanders back to Tennessee," Hawley said.
Sanders was placed in a holding cell and at about noon a mental health professional performed an evaluation concluding that he did not need to be committed at that time, recommending Sanders be released.
"Details at this point are still unclear, but it appears that Mr. Sanders declined to leave the holding cell which he was waiting at this time," Hawley said. "Early indications are that he became increasingly agitated at this point for reasons that are also still unclear at this juncture."
Sanders was allowed to use a cell phone to call his mother at about 3:45 p.m. and then made a series of calls to his family between 4 and 4:30 p.m.
Also around 4 p.m., jail staff asked the mental health professional to return for another evaluation, at which point it was recommended that Sanders begin a 96-hour mental health hold.
Sometime before 6 p.m. staff at the Mississippi County jail decided to move Sanders to another holding cell and he was unwilling to move. Hawley said this resulted in a series of exchanges and altercations between Mississippi County jail staff and Sanders that lasted until 6:45 p.m.
Shortly after 6 p.m., Charleston police were called in and used pepper spray in Sanders' cell. Hawley also added that "over the course of the day, we believe jail personnel deployed tasers at least three times to Mr. Sanders."
Hutcheson arrived at the jail at about 7 p.m. despite having his peace officer's license revoked a month earlier.
"Hutcheson then proceeded to organize the jail personnel as well as the Charleston police who were still present, in an attempt to force their way into Mr. Sanders' holding cell," Hawley said. "He was still in the original cell and had not ever been moved. At around 7:15 p.m. Hutcheson led the group into Mr. Sanders' cell."
Hawley said emergency medical personnel were summoned approximately 10 minutes later and they arrived shortly after 7:30 p.m. A few minutes after that, Sanders was taken to Missouri Delta Medical Center in Sikeston where he was pronounced dead.
What happened inside the cell still isn't known and highway patrol investigators are working to obtain all the surveillance tapes from the jail.
"We believe there is a fair amount of surveillance yet to be collected," Hawley said. "The highway patrol is actively working to collect it and authenticate it and review it to see exactly what it shows."
A statement released from the Sanders family relayed their desire to find out what happened.
"We want answers, we won't stop until we get answers," the statement read. "We want to find out what happened to my brother. We want justice."
While investigators search for answers, the fact Hutcheson was at the jail at all was concerning to the attorney general after he had charged the sheriff with 18 criminal counts, 10 of them felonies, including forgery, illegal surveillance, robbery and assault on April 5.
The charges were filed after it was alleged Hutcheson handcuffed a 77-year-old woman with so much force that she suffered a heart attack on March 24. Fifteen of the charges came from when Hutcheson was a deputy in 2014 and he is alleged to have "pinged" cellphones of then-Sheriff Keith Moore, Circuit Court Judge David Dolan and five highway patrol officials. He was released on $75,000 bond.
"My office had asked the court at that time, April 5, to deny Hutcheson bond and keep him in jail," Hawley said. "We also asked the court in the event that it did set bond, making it a condition of the bond that Hutcheson not engage in any form of law enforcement activity. However, the court denied both of our requests."
On April 6, at the request of Juden, Hawley's office filed a complaint with the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission so the DPS Director could immediately suspend Hutcheson's peace officer license, which he did. This was only the third time a DPS director utilized the immediate suspension authority.
Despite this, Hutcheson continued to serve as sheriff in an administrative capacity, which the Department of Public Safety has no legal authority to prevent.
"I have spent the last four decades in law enforcement in this state," Juden said. "When I took my job as Department of Public Safety Director four months ago one of my top priorities was to raise the professionalism of law enforcement. With that comes the responsibility of identifying those who have no business in the profession and taking action. That's why we acted immediately following the April criminal charges filed against Cory Hutcheson."
After learning of the events of last week, Hawley asked a judge Tuesday to strip Hutcheson of his office entirely and strip him of all authority. On Wednesday, Judge William Syler granted the request and Hutcheson has been entirely removed from office and is not allowed to go to the jail or any law enforcement facility. Mississippi County Coroner Terry Parker is currently serving as sheriff. Hawley said they will continue the quo warranto proceedings until Hutcheson is permanently stripped of his office.
"It is independent of our current investigation and independent of the 18 criminal charges," Hawley said. "The quo warranto proceeding that is involved is an extraordinary proceeding. It is extremely unusual and very, very rarely used but we felt the circumstances here more than warranted it and that's why we moved so aggressively on Tuesday to take this extraordinary action."
Hawley did say Hutcheson is not the sole person they are investigating in the altercation.
"We are gathering all the evidence and we have not ruled anything in or out," Hawley said. "We are going to go where the evidence leads. At this point I would characterize this is a very active and open criminal investigation."
Hutcheson has also been implicated in other incidents at the Mississippi County jail when he was jail administrator and Hawley said they are looking closely at those as well.
"They are not part of our current investigation that focuses on the events of May 5, but we are learning about troubling events regarding the troubling actions regarding Hutcheson all the time and we are looking at all that very carefully," Hawley said.
Hutcheson is due back in court on June 20 for his preliminary hearing on the 18 charges while the investigation into Sanders' death continues.
Meanwhile both Hawley and Juden expressed their condolences to the Sanders family and ensured a full and vigorous investigation.
"I cannot promise the outcome of our investigation, but promise we will do everything in our power to preserve justice in this case and every case," Juden said.