CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Chantelle Glass thought she was going to die over an unpaid traffic ticket and a request to make a phone call after she was booked in to the Cuyahoga County Jail last year.
The simple request to let someone know she was arrested turned into a violent attack by two Cuyahoga County Jail officers who were charged Monday with violating Glass’ civil rights when they strapped her to a restraint chair, punched her and shot pepper-spray in her face, according to Glass and prosecutors.
Glass, a mother of three children, suffers from asthma and could barely breathe during the two hours the officers left her tied to the chair in a small, isolated cell as the pepper-spray burned her lungs.
“That day, I thought I was going to die,” Glass said. “I sat in that cell I prayed to God that I wouldn’t die because I couldn’t breathe. I prayed that I wouldn’t die there.”
The officers accused of strapping her down and punching her, Cpl. Idris-Farid Clark and officer Robert Marsh, were indicted Monday, eight months after the incident.
Clark is charged with second-degree felony assault and misdemeanor counts of assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint. Marsh is charged with assault, interfering with civil rights and unlawful restraint, all misdemeanors.
Marsh was arrested late Monday and Clark remains at-large. Marsh and two other corrections officers are scheduled for arraignment on Tuesday.
Five corrections officers charged
The two were among one former and four current jail officers charged Monday in three separate criminal cases, all of which led to charges of civil rights violations.
Glass, 29, said she was dismayed that Clark and Marsh were allowed to keep working at the jail for so long after the July 16 attack.
Both were placed on restricted duty in August, but still worked in the jail until Tuesday, when they were placed on unpaid administrative leave.
Glass said she is considering legal action against the county.
“I don’t understand why they were still working,” Glass said. “It’s unjust they were still working and still getting a paychecks.”
‘I’ll just have you maced’
Glass said she ended up in the jail after her mother called Cleveland police when Glass and her sister had a heated argument.
Officers arrested both sisters and booked them into the jail. No charges were ever filed in that case. Glass was held in the jail because of an warrant for failing to show up for court for a traffic ticket from two years earlier.
She was placed in a cell and asked to make a phone call in order to let someone know she was locked up. Officers refused several times after she refused a corrections officer’s order to pick up a spoon, she said.
“After that it went downhill,” Glass said.
The female corrections officer said, "‘Well, I’ll just have you maced and strapped to a chair.’”
Glass got angrier and banged on her jail cell and yelled at officers.
She asked to talk to a supervisor. Clark, a supervisor, came to speak with her. Clark asked Glass if she was going to stop banging on the cell. She said she’d stop once she got to make her phone call.
She said Clark placed her in handcuffs and called for backup. Glass said Marsh walked up and immediately started “roughing” her up, Glass said. She said they then ordered her into the restraint chair, which prohibits someone from being able to move.
She said she walked to the chair without issue, but again asked for her phone call and hurled a few insults at the officers.
Marsh shoved her head and the officers told her to stop resisting, even though she wasn’t, Glass said.
‘Everything was burning’
Once she was strapped in the chair, Marsh punched her in the head, according to Glass and court records.
Clark put his can of pepper spray about a foot in front of her face and unloaded half the can, court records say. Glass said she was pepper-sprayed for about seven seconds, but she said it felt like five minutes.
“Everything was burning,” she said. “I had bad aches and my eyes hurt. And I still didn’t get my phone call.”
She told the officers she couldn’t breathe and that she had asthma.
Instead of taking her to get medical treatment, they locked her in a small cell by herself, poured water over her and left her there for two hours. She said she asked to use the bathroom several times and was denied. She urinated on herself. She wasn’t allowed to shower the pepper-spray off her skin.
“I really can’t believe it happened,” Glass said.
An investigator at the jail sought her out the next day and told her he was filing a report after watching the surveillance video of the incident. Cleveland.com has requested a copy of the video, and the county has denied the request. The news outlet filed a claim with the Ohio Court of Claims to get the video released.
Glass went in front of a judge two days later and was released from the jail on a personal bond and was never charged in the domestic incident.
When she told some family members and friends about what happened to her, they didn’t believe her.
“I figured if it was that bad, then something would have been done about it back then,” her father Alan Turner said.
Glass said she was happy to see something finally happen with her case, but has struggled since the incident with flashbacks and anxiety, especially around larger men like Marsh and Clark.
“I just want to see justice done,” Glass said. “I’m going to be at every hearing to make sure something gets done about this. I don’t want this to happen to someone else.”