Video shows guards restraining jail inmate before his death

MANSFIELD » The FBI, a special prosecutor and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation continue to investigate the death of a jail inmate who fell unconscious during a struggle with guards and after being shocked with a stun gun in September 2019, according to media reports.

Alexander Rios, 28, died at a hospital eight days after the confrontation at the Richland County jail in central Ohio. A video of the confrontation was included in a report last month by the Mansfield News Journal.

The video begins with a guard telling Rios to step down from a partition inside his cell and warning he would be placed in a restraint chair for his own safety. Guards rush in when he refuses. Rios then runs from the cell and is quickly tackled. Five guards pile on him as a woman not seen in the video says, “tase him.”

One of the guards presses his fist into the side of Rios’ head and punches him several times. Rios appears to lose consciousness about 4 minutes into the video. A minute later, a guard says Rios “is turning blue” as they try to place his limp body into a restraint chair. The unseen woman then radios for an ambulance.

Rios had been arrested on a warrant and jailed the day before the confrontation on a charge of illegal conveyance of drugs onto the grounds of a government facility.

Rios’ stepfather, Don Mould, told the newspaper his stepson wasn’t suicidal, as jail officials have claimed.

The Richland County coroner listed the cause of Rios’ death as “excited delirium” and noted that amphetamines were found in his system. Authorities declined to discuss the case with the newspaper.

J.C. Ratliff, an attorney for Rios’ mother and stepfather, said the video shows Rios being crushed to the floor.

“His stepdad wants someone to be held accountable,” Ratliff said. “It was unnecessary force that resulted in his death.”