Two years ago, Gregory Lloyd Edwards, a decorated Black former US Army medic who served in Kosovo and Iraq, died while being held in the custody of the Brevard County (Florida) deputies.  His family just found out the conditions of his death.

Edwards, who suffered from PTSD due to his service overseas, had been arrested after allegedly assaulting a charity worker outside a Walmart during the holiday season, according to an account in the Washington Post.

Put into a cell, Edwards seems calm during the first hours after his arrest.  He became increasingly agitated as time wore on, banging on the window of the cell, and by the time deputies came to book him and take his mugshot, Edwards lashed out, fighting them.

A dozen officers responded.  One pepper sprayed him.  Another tased him half a dozen times.  After being subdued, Edwards was strapped into a chair and had a transparent white hood, called a spit hood, placed over his head.

Edward sat in the chair for 16 minutes according to a video taken by security cameras in the jail.  He began writhing in the chair and in the audio-less video, he can be seen opening his mouth to cry, gasp of air or yell to his captors.

Then he goes silent and limp.

It took minutes for nearby deputies–who were doing paperwork or casually chatting–to notice the change in Edwards.  By the time the nurse they called arrived, Edwards was critical.  He was declared dead on arrival at a hospital.

The county medical examiner listed the cause of death as “excited delirium.”

Edwards’ family finally obtained the video of his jailhouse this week, thanks to the efforts of local journalists at Florida Today, who filed a state Freedom of Information Act motion to obtain the video.

The sheriff’s office claims the video exonerates deputies, who it says followed procedure in dealing with their detainee.  “The video clearly shows that not only did deputies not do anything to cause Edwards’s death, they did everything they could to keep him from being harmed,” Sheriff Wayne Ivey said in his video.

Ivey claims, without substantiation, that Edwards died because he was “huffing” intoxicants before his arrest, a claim his family denies.

Florida Today, however, documented at least 14 separate violations of the agency’s policies that could have caused or prevented Edwards’ death.