Settlement reached in Amherst wrongful death suit

A settlement has been reached in the $15 million wrongful death lawsuit involving a man who died in the custody of the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office in 2005.

A report signed Monday morning by federal magistrate judge Michael Urbanski and filed in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg states the parties reached a settlement on mutually agreeable terms during a mediation session Friday.

The terms were not disclosed.

Melva Taylor Davis, the mother of the dead man, released a statement through her lawyers Monday afternoon noting that she is under a confidentiality agreement.

“My family is grateful to all who helped with the resolution,” Davis wrote. “We look forward to the power of God’s love and healing not only of our grief, but for the deputies, too. We all remain in need of prayer.”

Amherst County Sheriff Jimmy Ayers and Carlene Johnson, who represented the deputies involved in the arrest, did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

The two sides have 45 days to finalize the settlement and file required paperwork with the court asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed, according to Urbanski’s report.

Sanchez Taylor, 28, of Lynchburg died on June 16, 2005, after a run-in with Amherst County deputies.

After Taylor’s car was found abandoned and locked in a northbound lane of U.S. 29, deputies responded to a call of a break-in at nearby Bethel Welding.

Deputies Debbie Tinnell and Darren Givens found Taylor at the back of the welding shop and tried to arrest him, according to sworn statements filed with the court.

The statements claimed Taylor refused to follow orders to get on the ground and that they had to handcuff him while he was lying on a ladder behind the shop. They tried to move him, they said, but could not get him any farther than a set of ornamental welded racks a few feet away.

It was then that two more deputies, Brian Drewry and Kelly Dodson arrived and helped pick up Taylor, still fighting.

A few feet later, still unable to get him under control, the officers put him on the ground. As a fifth deputy, Betty Wise, came on the scene, deputies noticed he was having trouble breathing and that he was having a seizure.

He never recovered and died within a few hours at Lynchburg General Hospital.

Davis, Taylor’s mother, contended in her lawsuit that deputies held her son down on the ladder and racks, suffocating and killing him.

Medical experts hired by the deputies claimed the death was accidental, brought on by cocaine abuse, heart disease and mental illness in a condition known as excited delirium.

Documents recently filed with the court show Taylor was acquitted by reason of insanity in a 1997 Richmond homicide, and that he had been committed to a state mental hospital for nearly five years with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder.

The state medical examiner in Roanoke ruled the death a homicide and disputed claims of excited delirium because bruises were found in Taylor’s deep abdominal tissues, showing he was restrained in a way that could have cut off his ability to breathe.

The four deputies cited in the federal lawsuit were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in state court Aug. 14.