JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The family of a Black Missouri man who prosecutors say was killed by guards in a Missouri prison sued Tuesday for surveillance video of the moments leading up to his death.

Four prison guards were charged last month with murder, and a fifth with accessory to involuntary manslaughter, in 38-year-old Othel Moore Jr.’s December 2023 death. All five former guards have pleaded not guilty.

Moore’s mother and sister said they submitted a request in January through Missouri’s public records laws for prison surveillance video from the day of his death.

In a lawsuit their attorney said was filed Tuesday, the family said it still has not received the footage.

The Department of Corrections “knowingly and purposefully withheld the requested video in violation of the Sunshine Law,” attorneys for Moore’s family wrote in the lawsuit. They said the agency is claiming “without evidence, that releasing the videos would somehow harm security.”

Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann on Tuesday said she cannot comment on pending litigation, “but I can assure you that the department cooperated fully with the outside law enforcement investigation into this case.”

Prosecutors allege Moore was searched and stripped down to his boxer shorts inside his cell during a prison contraband sweep.

He was then handcuffed behind his back and led outside, according to a probable cause statement from deputies. Moore showed no aggression during the process and was complying with orders, investigators wrote.

While standing handcuffed just outside his cell door, Moore was pepper-sprayed, then put in a spit hood, leg wrap and restraint chair, according to a prosecutor. Guards told investigators that Moore was not following orders to be quiet and spit at them, although witnesses said Moore was spitting pepper spray out of his mouth.

Moore was eventually taken to a hospital wing and was pronounced dead. Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson said the medical examiner ruled Moore’s cause of death was from positional asphyxiation, and his death was listed as a homicide.

The University of Missouri will eliminate its division focused on diversity, social equity and inclusion on the Columbia campus, completing the dismantling of administrative structures put in place after protests in 2015 brought national attention to issues of racial equality.

The move coincides with the departure of division Vice Chancellor Maurice Gipson. It is designed to appease Republicans who are showing hostility towards efforts designed to attract and retain students from historically underrepresented groups, Mun Choi, University of Missouri System president and Columbia campus chancellor, said at a briefing with reporters last week.

There have been 13 bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion filed in the legislature over the past two years Choi noted. During debate on the state budget during 2023, Republicans in the Missouri House added language banning any diversity efforts across state government, language that was deleted before the final budget passed.

One of the leading Republican candidates for governor, state Sen. Bill Eigel, has said he will fire every state employee who works to promote diversity and equity in state agencies, including universities.

“We realize the political situations that have occurred in other universities across the United States, including Texas, and Florida, Utah, and now Alabama, as well as many others,” Choi said.

Choi said the university has lobbied heavily against legislative action.

“We do believe that our proactive approaches in the past have really played an important role when diverting these bills from passing and I will be sharing our plans with elected leaders beginning this week,” he said.

The top goal is to protect the university’s operating and capital appropriations, Choi said.

“As a university we see about $500 million per year in appropriations and $200 million in capital one-time projects,” Choi said. “If we don’t see the $700 million dollars per year, we would have to eliminate every single position at all of the colleges that we have at universities. That is not a risk that I want to take.”

Gipson, hired as vice chancellor in 2020, is leaving to become interim president at Philander Smith University, an historically Black college in Arkansas. The four units of the division will be moved into other offices, which Choi said will make their mission part of the overall mission in each office.

No employees will lose their jobs, Choi said.

Gipson, who joined Choi in the briefing, said he’s confident that the work begun in the division will continue.

“We’ve been inspired and impressed that our colleagues here say, ‘this is going to work, we don’t have to all be underneath, necessarily the same place to get this work done,’” Gipson said.

The division’s units were moved out of the offices where they will return as part of a university commitment following the events of the fall of 2015, when long-simmering grievances about racial issues on campus led to a protest movement called Concerned Student 1950. 

The student group chose a name that reflected the year the first Black student was admitted to the school, which was founded in 1839. It sought to bring attention to overlooked school history that the campus was founded on the wealth of slaveholders and partially built with the labor of enslaved people.

A large group of students created a tent city, a graduate student started a hunger strike and the protests grabbed international attention when the Missouri Tiger football team joined the protest, stating they would not participate in sports until administrators showed they were meeting the demands that included the resignation of then-system President Tim Wolfe.

Other demands included more Black faculty, a plan to increase the retention rates for marginalized students and increased funding and personnel for the student support centers.

Wolfe resigned in November 2015 and the protest ended. In the year between his removal and the announcement that Choi would become the new permanent president, the university established both a campus division and a system vice-presidency focused on DEI efforts.

Choi, who was born in Korea, is the first non-white president of the university. He became campus chancellor in 2020, becoming the first president since the university system was established in the 1960s to hold both jobs.

“This reporting structure in the chancellor’s office is important to cementing the level of support for this work,” Kevin McDonald, then-chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for the UM System and vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity on the MU campus told the Columbia Daily Tribune in 2016. “I would hope it elevates the level of visibility of the work they have been doing.”

Despite those efforts, Black enrollment on the Columbia campus has fallen from 7.3% of the student body in fall 2015 to 5.3% last fall. The share of Hispanic students has increased to 5.5% from 3.5% in fall 2015 and the share of Asian students has increased from 3% from 2.2%.

The share of white students has remained virtually unchanged at about 77%.

The university anticipates an 11% increase in Black students and a 14% increase in Hispanic students on campus this fall, Choi said.

One specific demand was to increase Black representation among faculty to 10%. Black academics made up 3.5% of tenured and tenure-track faculty on the Columbia campus in the fall of 2023, down from 4.2% in 2018, the target year for the 10% goal.

While the share of Black students and faculty has declined, graduation rates for underrepresented ethnic groups on campus have increased, Choi said. The Columbia campus has the highest six-year graduation rate for Black students among public universities in Missouri, he said, and is near the median of flagship universities in nearby states for Black faculty.

The university began removing the structures put in place following the protests last year after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled race-based admission policies were unconstitutional.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey ordered universities to “immediately cease their practice of using race-based standards to make decisions about things like admission, scholarships, programs and employment.”

The university responded by ending preferences in a number of scholarships and persuading donors to remove any racial or ethnic criteria from endowed programs. It also stopped requiring applicants for system administration jobs to include diversity statements in their job submissions.

Choi said the university has used those actions as part of its lobbying strategy.

“We do believe that our proactive approaches in the past have really played an important role when diverting these bills from passing,” Choi said, “and I will be sharing our plans with elected leaders.”

There were issues identified with a separate structure that the reorganization will address, Choi said.

“Because the ID division that works on student success programs were operating in an organization that was outside of the rest of the student success organization that’s in the Provost Office, there’s less opportunity to be inclusive, and less opportunities to be collaborative in that process,” he said.

The goal of the reorganization, Choi said, is to preserve the jobs and programs but to make them less visible.

“When you read the headlines that are out there, nationally, DEI is seen as an ideology, and it may be viewed by some as being exclusionary in the name of inclusion,” Choi said. “That is not what we do at the University of Missouri.”

Of all the position rooms on the Missouri football defense, the safeties return the most production and experience.

The Tigers’ lone significant loss was in JC Carlies, who was a fifth-round pick by the Indianapolis Colts, where he looks set to transition to linebacker. Beyond that, the Tigers return some intriguing pieces.

That’s a good spot for new defensive coordinator Corey Batoon, who also will coach the safeties for the Tigers. It’s also a rare one for Missouri, which lost 10 starters or key role players on defense to either the NFL Draft or to eligibility over the offseason.

Here is how Missouri’s safeties room looks heading into fall camp. Every scholarship player and any notable walk-on is mentioned:

The options for Missouri football at safety

Starters: Daylan Carnell, jr.; Joseph Charleston, sr.; Marvin Burks, so.

Reserves: Sidney Williams Sr., sr.; Tre’Vez Johnson, sr.; Phillip Roche, so.; Trajen Greco, fr.; Caleb Flagg, jr.; Austyn Dendy, fr.; Jackson Hancock, fr.

Daylan Carnell will start at the star safety role, a hybrid safety/linebacker position that looks like it will carry over from the scheme set in place by former defensive coordinator Blake Baker.

Behind him in the secondary, Joseph Charleston looks set to resume his role at free safety, while sophomore Marvin Burks Jr. will take over for Carlies at strong safety.

The Tigers have three versatile and proven backups behind that trio, too. Sidney Williams Sr. and Tre’Vez Johnson, transfers out of Florida and Florida State, respectively, ahead of the 2023 campaign, were strong backups last year. Roche flashed great potential backing up Carnell at the star in his freshman year.

Caleb Flagg, a walk-on out of Houston Christian and the brother of new MU linebacker Corey Flagg, was one of the surprising names to emerge out of spring camp, drawing praise from the coaches for his on-ball ability.

Four-star prospect Trajen Greco looks set to rep at safety for Mizzou, as will three-star recruits Austyn Dendy and Jackson Hancock.

The upside

Charleston has been a tried-and-tested talent over two seasons with Missouri since transferring from Clemson two years ago. Burks showed he has as high a ceiling as perhaps anyone on this Mizzou defense in his rookie year.

But the player to perhaps be most excited about is Daylan Carnell, who has just got better and better each year in his time with Mizzou.

He was a force when he was brought up to blitz in the Cotton Bowl, hounding Ohio State’s quarterbacks from kickoff to triple-zeros, finishing that game with a sack and three QB hurries. Against Tennessee, Carnell showed off a good eye, taking an interception back to the house in the fourth quarter to really put the final nail in the Vols’ coffin. It was his second pick-six in as many seasons.

If he takes another step forward, he could very well be Missouri’s defensive MVP this season. There aren’t any glaring weaknesses in his game, and his strengths have just gotten better and better as he’s progressed.

One question or concern

Batoon, like Blake Baker before him, will coach the safeties this season. The question facing this group is how he’ll want them to act. Will he bring Charleston and Burks into blitz as often as Baker did Charleston and Carlies? What kind of coverages will this unit be adept at defending? How will its relationship with a new-look pairing at cornerback look?

This is a talented group, but the details are still to be ironed out as to their role in the greater scheme of the defense.

The good news for the Tigers is that this is about as talented and deep a room as they have on defense, at least heading into the preseason. Between Carnell, Charleston, Williams and Johnson, there’s a lot of high-level experience on display, which should mitigate most concerns.

Breakout candidate

Phillip Roche had a promising freshman season, particularly impressing as a hybrid linebacker against Kentucky with a sack and a forced fumble.

Now, behind who may be the standout member of this defense in Carnell, he could be primed for a jump forward. 

It would be a similar progression as Carnell, who started his career backing up Martez Manuel at the position in 2022. Roche has taken his chances in the lineup so far. His progression into his sophomore season makes for some intrigue.

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