Nearly a year after a 50-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, man was killed in the Wyandotte County jail, his family has viewed body camera footage showing the moments leading up to his death.
Charles Adair died on July 5, 2025, after a sheriff’s deputy knelt on his back for one minute and 26 seconds, according to police documents. The county coroner ruled the death a homicide by mechanical asphyxiation.
Erica Adair, the victim’s sister, called the bodycam footage “devastating” as she stood in front of the Wyandotte County courthouse on Wednesday with her mother and other family members.
The family has previously called for law enforcement to publicly release the footage.
“We basically watched our loved one die. They knelt on his back until he was breathless,” Erica Adair said. “(It was) pretty devastating to watch, although it was something that we needed to see.”
A spokesperson for the Wyandotte County sheriff’s office said it worked with the legal department to follow applicable laws for requests to view video by family as soon as it received the request to see the footage.
“The first time we received any request from the family or their attorneys to view the video was April 16, 2026,” the spokesperson said. “After receiving that request, we worked to coordinate a place and time for them to view the video and that occurred today.”
The sheriff’s office had no further comment.
The family has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against Sheriff Daniel Soptic for showing “deliberate indifference” in failing to train his deputies. The lawsuit also names the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, claiming Adair’s constitutional rights were ignored.
Richard Fatherley, the deputy charged with second-degree murder in Adair’s death, and five other deputies are included in the suit. The other five deputies said they hadn’t received proper training on use-of-force situations during the past three to five years, according to the lawsuit.
Fatherley’s preliminary hearing is set for May 20.
Ted Ruzicka, a lawyer representing the family with Davis, Bethune & Jones, said Adair was handcuffed, face down and compliant when the deputy knelt on his back and cut off his ability to breathe. He was in jail on misdemeanor traffic warrants.
“A traffic violation shouldn't be a death sentence,” Ruzicka said. “The Adair family is here seeking accountability so that no other family has to suffer as they're suffering.”
Civil rights attorneys Harry Daniels and Ben Crump are also representing the family. Daniels said on Wednesday that it was his second time seeing the video and it was still hard to watch.
He said Adair needed medical attention and sought it when officers surrounded him and one used “unnecessary, excessive force.”
The lawsuit alleges that Adair was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was suffering a mental breakdown and had a serious infection of his left leg. Deputies were returning Adair to his cell from the infirmary when deputies placed him on a lower bunk in a cell, with his upper body on the bed and his knees on the floor, the lawsuit says.
Adair was placed face down in what’s considered an unauthorized prone restraint position, the suit says. He was handcuffed and in a wheelchair while complying with commands, according to the suit.
“The family know now exactly what happened to him, and what happened to him was a murder that took place,” Daniels said. “It was an unlawful, excessive use-of-force killing of Charles Adair — something that we have echoed from the beginning.”
