August 29, 2025
(St. Louis)–Today in court, Janis Mensah, a former leader with the local jail oversight board and represented by ArchCity Defenders, filed a lawsuit against the City of St. Louis, which names specific personnel within St. Louis’ jail and police departments for violating Mensah’s most basic rights and liberties.
On August 31, 2023, in their official capacity as Vice Chair of the City’s Detention Facilities Oversight Board, Mensah attempted to gather information about a man who died in-custody. Without warning, Mensah was forcibly arrested and removed from the jail lobby by SLMPD officers at the behest of the former commissioner. Mensah’s arrest resulted in hospitalization and significant injuries. The City pursued municipal prosecution for two years until Mensah and ArchCity Defenders defeated the attempt and Mensah was acquitted on July 24, 2025.
Following Janis Mensah’s acquittal last month, Mensah and ArchCity Defenders are suing the City of St. Louis, Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, and three employees of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for violating Mensah’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and for use of excessive force on the night they were arrested, August 31, 2023.
“I think it’s just another example that this is not a justice system. It is a legal punishment system. It is about state sanctioned violence against those who are imprisoned and, in this case, those that try to advocate [for] those who imprisoned,” said Janis Mensah. “I think that government systems like the city of St. Louis retaliate against ordinary citizens because they recognize the power of ordinary citizens to make change and to do what is seen as a threat to them, which is to bring light to the shortcomings of our city.”
“We spent two years defending Janis from needless charges brought and maintained to prevent Janis from exercising their constitutional rights. Janis has been stalwart in the face of retaliation from the City, and we are honored to represent them,” said Maureen Hanlon, Managing Attorney at ArchCity Defenders. “It is a waste of taxpayer dollars to arrest and prosecute someone for asking public officials to simply do better at their jobs.”
Following protests held by detainees in 2021 at St. Louis City’s jail, the City Justice Center, a Detention Facilities Oversight Board (DFOB) was established, and volunteers were sworn in as members in 2022. Janis Mensah, former Vice Chair of the DFOB, often led communications with jail staff and made numerous attempts to conduct oversight at the jail.
During Mensah’s tenure, senior jail staff repeatedly rebuffed pertinent requests from the DFOB for access and information. In Spring 2023, members of the DFOB sent multiple requests to former Commissioner Clemons-Abdullah and Public Safety Director Charles Coyle in attempt to do the oversight for which they had been tasked: requesting documents and records, gathering testimony, and accessing the facility. On this occasion and others, Clemons-Abdullah refused to provide responsive information, testimony, and access to the facility.
Between April and August of 2023, Mensah continued to contact Clemons-Abdullah, notifying her, pursuant to City ordinance, before their visits to the jail to conduct oversight. As communicated, Mensah went to the jail on April 7, 14, and 21 of 2023, and each time, was made to wait several hours in the jail lobby. Mensah was permitted on one visit to speak with a detainee who had been maced, assaulted, and neglected by staff.
Between 2022 and 2023, at least eleven people died while in-custody. The obstruction of the DFOB coupled with the escalating number of deaths and incidents at the facility, led the DFOB to publicly critique Commissioner Clemons-Abdullah throughout the spring and by summer 2023, call for her resignation.
When the DFOB learned that another person died at CJC on August 31, Mensah, again in their capacity as Vice Chair of the DFOB, went to the jail to acquire information, and waited in the lobby. Given how many deaths had occurred, and reports that CJC staff had been deleting videos of incidents, Mensah decided to visit and request information about the death directly from correctional staff and video surveillance.
That evening, advocates gathered outside of the City Justice Center acknowledging the chronically lethal and inhumane conditions within the jail, the restrictions on the DFOB, and demanded transparency from city officials.
Inside of the jail lobby, no one told Mensah they would not be permitted further within CJC, nor did anyone ever request Mensah leave the facility. Instead, the former Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah called SLMPD and falsely reported that Janis was trespassing, in order to have SLMPD forcibly arrest and remove Janis from the building.
Mensah was unaware police had been summoned and did not know why the police were there. Neither SLMPD Officer Brian Gonzales nor Officer Ian Csapo inquired as to why Mensah was in the lobby and instantly escalated to physical violence, pushing and pulling on Mensah, punching Mensah in the back of the head, throwing them to the floor, punching them several more times, and kneeling on top of them. Mensah’s body was completely limp, and they had lost consciousness and control of their limbs. At no point did Mensah make any threatening movements towards the officers, verbally threaten the officers, run from the officers, or attempt to resist the officers.
On October 12, 2010, the Associate Press reported on a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Missouri on behalf of Landa Poke, brother of Courtland Lucas, a 32-year-old who died in-custody at CJC, five days after he was jailed on an alleged probation violation. The article concludes with the ACLU signaling the “need for independent oversight of jails in St. Louis and elsewhere in Missouri.
“In the past fifteen years, numerous people have died, inhumane conditions and wrongful death lawsuits were filed, and ordinances to establish oversight have passed. How is it that individuals still choose to sweep CJC’s abuses under a rug?” said Z Gorley, Communications Director at ArchCity Defenders.
Since the City Justice Center opened in 2005, at least 48 people have died in-custody, according to records from St. Louis City, and between 2020 to the present, at least 20 people have died.
A civil rights suit filed by ArchCity Defenders, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and Rights Behind Bars, detailing accounts of CJC staff excessively macing and depriving detainees of water, is still pending.
Since 2014, ArchCity Defenders has filed 54 lawsuits. As of July 2024, 34 cases have settled, and federal courts have ordered defendants to pay $26.7 million in monetary damages.
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In the past fifteen years, ArchCity Defenders (ACD), a holistic legal advocacy organization, has grown from its three founders volunteering part-time to a full-time staff of 36 that provides direct services to people entangled by the legal system while also challenging its inherent injustice through resource provision, representation, litigation, media and policy advocacy, and community organizing.
Follow ACD on social media for regular updates.
Media Contact:
Z Gorley, Director of Communications, ArchCity Defenders
zgorley@archcitydefenders.org
(314) 643-2463