Jury awards $8.3 million to foster teen’s family after his death at juvenile intake center

Jurors have awarded $8.3 million to the family of a Kansas foster teen who died in 2021 after he was held facedown for 39 minutes in a juvenile intake center while in the throes of a mental health crisis.

Five juvenile officers in Sedgwick County either used excessive force on Cedric “C.J.” Lofton or failed to intervene, the jurors decided Wednesday after a trial in federal court in Wichita.

John Marrese, an attorney for Lofton’s brother and the estate, said Thursday that he was pleased that jurors rejected arguments that the death stemmed from “excited delirium,” a controversial diagnosis discredited by major medical associations. Critics say it was often used to justify excessive force by police.

“It’s a good development in the world of prolonged prone restraint in terms of a jury acknowledging how dangerous it is and the fact that it can be fatal,” Marrese said.

Sedgwick County, which employed the officers named in the suit, said in a news release Wednesday that it was reviewing the verdict and discussing next steps.

Lofton died in a hospital on Sept. 26, 2021, just one day before his 18th birthday.

The final autopsy declared his death a homicide. But Marc Bennett, the district attorney, said in the months that followed that the state’s “stand-your-ground” law prevented him from pursuing charges of involuntary manslaughter because staff members were protecting themselves.

Lofton’s mental health deteriorated after he traveled to Texas for his grandmother’s funeral, with the teen telling a foster brother that he thought his classmates were murderous robots, Bennett wrote in a report.

Lofton’s foster father drove him to a mental health provider, but the teen ran off. When Lofton returned home at 1 a.m. the following day, the foster father called Wichita police, the report said.

Officers then spent nearly an hour trying to persuade Lofton to let them take him to a mental hospital, body camera video showed. But the 5-foot-10, 135-pound (1.7-meter, 61-kilogram) teenager refused to budge.

Ultimately, officers decided to take him forcibly, restraining him in something called the WRAP, a device comprised of a locking shoulder harness, leg restraints and ankle straps.

A sergeant then determined he was too combative to go to the hospital, so officers transported him to the Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center instead, the report showed.

After the WRAP restraint was removed, Lofton scuffled with staff, who shackled Lofton’s ankles and put him on his stomach on the floor. Paramedics rushed to the facility after staff noticed he wasn’t breathing, but he died two days later.