Damien Cameron, a Black man, died last July after Mississippi sheriff's deputies tased him twice and knelt on his back for more than 15 minutes, says his mother, Monica Lee. Nearly one year after Cameron's death, Insider is suing the Rankin County Sheriff's Department for incident reports related to his death and that of two others involving the sheriff's department. Over eight months in 2021, Robert Rushton and Trevor McKinley were shot to death during confrontations with Rankin County sheriff's deputies, while Cameron, Cory Jackson, and Adam Coker died in department custody. The sheriff's department provided records related to the jailhouse death of Jackson after the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) closed its investigation into his case in May. It also provided records related to the death of Coker, who died in the same jail in September, though that investigation, as well as probes into the deaths of Cameron, McKinley and Rushton, remain open.
In total, Insider requested records, including incident reports, related to all five deaths. The agency has only provided incident reports related to two of them. Cameron died in the custody of the sheriff's department on July 26, 2021, after his family said police were called to their home over a false burglary report. After his death, MBI said Cameron "collapsed" while running away from deputies. "It's crazy to me because I think the whole thing is trying to cover it up," Lee said. "But the way he sustained injuries, that can't be covered up, because you can't do that by tripping and falling." Two months before Cameron's death, Jackson died in jail after Rankin County sheriff's deputies arrested him in Florence, Ms., on what his family said were trumped-up disorderly conduct charges.