There may be something wrong with the way police use force, maybe.

The deputies then put Christie into a restraining chair, a controversial device that binds inmates at both wrists, both ankles, and across the chest. In depositions, the other inmates, along with a deputy trainee named Monshay Gibbs, testified that Christie was sprayed at least two more times after he had been strapped to the chair. He was also stripped naked, and outfitted with a “spit mask,” a hood designed to prevent inmates from spitting on jail personnel. In Christie’s case, the mask kept the pepper spray in close proximity to his nose and mouth, ensuring he would continue to inhale it for the full six hours he was in the restraint chair.

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In the early afternoon of March 29, Nick Christie went into respiratory distress. He was taken to the Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers. Joyce Christie told journalist Jane Akre that according to hospital staff, her husband was so covered in pepper spray that doctors had to repeatedly change their gloves as they became contaminated. Christie would suffer multiple heart attacks over the next two days before he was finally declared brain dead and his life support was removed on March 31. Two days after Christie had been transported out of the jail, Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Pfalzgraf noted in his autopsy report that Christie still had brown-orange liquid pepper spray all over his body.

Pfalzgraf determined that Christie’s heart gave out due to stress from his exposure to pepper spray. He ruled the death a homicide.

The Devil’s Chair

“I look at this story, and all I can say is, what in the world were they thinking?” says David Klinger, a former police officer who now teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Klinger specializes in the use of force. “As a general rule, you don’t use pepper spray on someone who is restrained. There might be some limited circumstances where, say, you have a suspect in handcuffs who is banging his head against the window of a patrol car. You might give him a quick burst of pepper spray. But never, never someone who is secured in a restraint chair. It just makes no sense at all.”