TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Julia Wilburn on Apr 5, 2023

The family of Gershun Freeman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Chief Jailer Kirk Fields and the Shelby County government, the Commercial Appeal reports. Freeman was an inmate at the Shelby County Jail who died after corrections officers pepper sprayed him, hit him and kneeled on his back for multiple minutes. The lawsuit accuses corrections officers and Shelby County leadership of disregarding the jail's standard procedure, interfering with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and displaying a pattern of violence against inmates.