Alabama deputy to plead guilty to assaulting a man having a mental crisis who later died in jail

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama sheriff's deputy will plead guilty to assaulting a man suffering from a mental health crisis who later died of sepsis and hypothermia in the local jail, court filings made public on Tuesday revealed.

The plea supports a recent onslaught of reports that depict a rampant culture of abuse among the local sheriff's department in Walker County, in a rural region of northern Alabama.

Carl Lofton Carpenter, 55, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights, according to the plea. Carpenter and fellow Walker County Sheriff's Deputy James Handley arrested Tony Mitchell in 2023. Mitchell died in the Walker County jail just two weeks later after he was detained in a concrete cell covered in feces with no toilet or access to medical attention.

Carpenter stepped on Mitchell's genitals while he was handcuffed, saying, “This is how we treat seizures in Walker County,” according to the plea document. Carpenter then dragged Mitchell on the ground, kicked him and threw him roughly into the police car.

Carpenter assaulted Mitchell even though he was “compliant, obeyed commands, and posed no threat of harm to the officers,” the plea says,

The plea deal says Carpenter “had become accustomed to harming arrestees unnecessarily consistent with the culture of the Walker County Sheriff's Office."

The deputies first encountered Mitchell at his residence while responding to a call from one of his relatives who asked for a welfare check on him. The sheriff’s office said at the time that Mitchell was talking about portals to hell and asserted that he had fired a weapon at officers.

The plea also reveals that Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith was directly responsible for sending Mitchell to the local jail where he would later die, “despite (Mitchell) demonstrating symptoms of severe mental illness.”

At least 10 other jail employees have pleaded guilty to charges related to Mitchell's death. Neither Smith nor lawyers for Carpenter and Handley responded to separate emailed requests for comment on Tuesday evening.

The years long investigation has revealed harrowing details about the weeks leading up to Mitchell’s death. A plea deal made public in January reveals officers intentionally kept the conditions in the Walker County jail “as filthy as possible” to convince county commissioners to increase salaries and the jail budget.

Minutes from a Walker County commissioners meeting confirm that a county commissioner visited the jail two weeks after Mitchell died.

Carpenter faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Handley was indicted in March on charges of assaulting Mitchell and witness tampering for allegedly lying to a separate grand jury about the incident in August.

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Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.