The family of a mentally ill Black woman and her two children who froze to death in a field in Pontiac, Michigan, in January 2023 is suing Oakland County and several of its deputy sheriffs, alleging they callously and willfully failed to help their loved ones to find shelter and medical care in bitterly cold conditions.
Temperatures ranged from 23 to 31 degrees Fahrenheit as Monica Cannady, 35, her sons Malik Milton, 3, and Kyle Milton, 9, and her surviving daughter, then 10 (and identified in the suit as Jane Doe), roamed the streets of Pontiac, near Detroit, during a windy winter day on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023.
According to one of two federal lawsuits filed on their behalf by relative Cherry Cannady last week, the children wore light clothing, had no coats, hats or gloves, were draped in bedsheets, and “were in imminent danger of severe injury or death” as they and their mother had multiple encounters with Oakland deputies who either refused or negligently failed to usher them to safety.
Monica Cannady was undergoing a mental health crisis and was unable to make sound decisions or to properly care for her children, which should have been apparent to the officers, triggering them to take the children into custody and to call child protective services, the lawsuit argues.
Cannaday’s mental health had suffered following the murder of her children’s father, Kyle Milton, in November 2021. The trial for his accused killer was underway in January of 2023, according to WXYZ.
At 1:01 pm on that Friday, a “good Samaritan” called the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office via 911, reporting that a family of four was knocking on doors asking for help and wearing only bedsheets to protect them from the cold, the complaint says. The caller, who had turned the family away and then observed Monica Cannady try to break into a neighbor’s house, asked for a welfare check.
Deputies responded and deployed a drone that located the family 10 minutes later, just as they entered McLaren Hospital downtown. There, Deputy Devon Bernritter spoke with the mother, who “stared blankly” at him for a long period before responding, “I don’t know that,” when he asked if she and the children were OK, according to the lawsuit and his bodycam video.
Cannady gave the officer conflicting reasons for being there, including that her son was cold and that he had a cardiology appointment, before quickly walking away and heading out the door as Bernritter talked to a nurse.
Bernritter and another deputy followed Cannady and the children in their patrol cars as they walked briskly and then ran away from them through city streets and across a grassy area. Bernritter later noted that his pursuit seemed to agitate the woman. When he confronted her again, she claimed she was going to a relative’s home, and he watched them walk away.
The lawsuit says Bernritter “had probable cause to know that Monica was suffering a serious medical disability, that she and her children were in imminent danger and unable to care for themselves,” and should have detained them.
The family did find their way to Monica Cannady’s mother’s house, where they stayed for a couple of hours, but left abruptly at 3:30 p.m. as Cannady, in a state of panic, told her mother that police were following her and trying to kill her.
The lawsuit says relatives begged Cannady to leave the children there, but she refused.
At 4:36 p.m., Pamela Robinson went to the Pontiac Station to report that her niece, Monica, and the children were missing. She met with Deputy John Brish, alerting him that Monica had bipolar disorder and was having a breakdown.
At 4:39 p.m., another good Samaritan named Chuck Johnson called 911 from his sedan to report he witnessed three kids who were freezing and crying and there was “something going on with this adult.”
At 4:53 p.m., Johnson called back, saying no one had responded, that the woman seemed mentally impaired, and now the family were “in the woods.”
At 4:57 p.m., Deputy Alex Kazal pulled up and had a testy exchange with Johnson, telling him “there is nothing we can do about that” regarding the family’s welfare, the lawsuit says, and that he didn’t have time to deal with it because he needed to aid another officer engaged in pursuit of a violent felon.
In truth, the lawsuit says, Kazal had just been ordered by command to search for Monica Cannady and the children but was refusing to do so.
From 5:14 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Kazal unleashed his unvarnished thoughts about being ordered to find the family during a cellphone call with a male colleague that was unwittingly recorded on his bodycam, a conversation full of racially charged language, the complaint notes.
Referring to Johnson, Kazal said,“What really grinds my gears is that these people can’t just mind their own f —ing business,” then complained about not being able to do “real police work.”
“What do you want me to do? Rip them out of their mother’s arms and f — ing spend seven hours trying to get them into CPS protective custody because they’re out on the street with their mom and it’s kind of cold out? … The kids will still be there in an hour when we get another welfare check. … people in Pontiac just don’t die … It’s a CYA (cover your ass) because a dumb-ass ghetto politician can’t just leave well enough alone because it is kind of cold out.”
Kazal “summed up his point of view about searching for Monica and her minor children by announcing, ‘I don’t particularly care,’” the lawsuit says.
Johnson continued calling 911 to update authorities on Cannady and her family’s location, and deputies eventually arrived to search an area where the mother had put up a tent.
Deputy Brish performed a “cursory” search around the tent area and reportedly told deputies he made sure to wave his flashlight around to make it look like he was searching for the family, the lawsuit claims.
Meanwhile, Kazal allegedly made no effort to find them and took off in his squad car. Later in the evening, Kazal waved off another call from dispatch to find the family, saying he was busy on patrol.
The next day, Cannady and her children continued to wander the area on foot, knocking on doors for help, the complaint says. The deputies made no further efforts to find them that weekend, while family members and friends stood watch near her home.
On Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, at 3:13 p.m., 10-year-old Jane Doe woke up in a vacant field near a former housing project where the family had slept the night before. Her mother and two brothers had frozen to death.
She made her way to the house across the street and reported that her family was dead.
Among the deputies who responded to the area to deal with the distressed girl and her dead family was Kazal, reported the Detroit Free Press.
Before her mother and brothers died, Cannady’s daughter told police, the family was looking for an abandoned house because people were trying to kill them, and they couldn’t get help because her mother said people could pretend to be police, according to reports reviewed by the Free Press.
Failing to find an abandoned home by nighttime, they slept in the field. Jane Doe and her brother Malik were crying because they didn’t want to stay there, she told police.
The girl said that at one point, her mother sat down next to the children and told them she loved them, that she was going to miss them, and that she hoped to go to heaven. Then the girl and her mother exchanged hugs and a kiss.
Cherry Cannady, representing the estate of her deceased relatives as well as her living great-grandniece, is suing Kazal, Bernritter, Brish and Oakland County for gross negligence, discrimination on the basis of race and disability, and for violating state child protection law.
In violation of their duty, the complaint says, “Defendants made a conscious decision to ignore calls, to not search for Plaintiff’s decedents, to not complete a welfare check, and to abandon efforts to search for and protect Monica and her children before they suffered serious and fatal injuries due to the cold.”
These decisions were based on the disparate treatment of Black residents in Pontiac, a predominantly Black community, when compared with the more favorable treatment of residents in the predominantly white communities of Oakland County surrounding Pontiac, the lawsuit contends.
The decisions of Kazal and the other deputies “were based on personal spite, animus and ill will unrelated to their official duties” towards Cannady and her children, the complaint says, and were motivated by racial bias and “deliberate indifference” to the safety of the family.
But for the defendants’ acts and omissions, the lawsuit argues, the family would have been located, Cannady would have received the mental health treatment she required, three members of the family would not have died of hypothermia, and Jane Doe would not have been permanently injured and traumatized.
The lawsuit representing the family estate seeks a jury trial to determine monetary damages to compensate for the family members’ wrongful deaths, as well as medical, hospital, funeral and burial expenses, and compensation for the pain and suffering, while conscious, undergone by the decedent plaintiffs, between their time of injury and death.
The lawsuit on behalf of the surviving daughter Jane Doe seeks compensation for her conscious pain and suffering; permanent scarring; fright, shock and terror; depression, anxiety and mental anguish; medical bills; loss of future earning capacity; and the loss of society and companionship of her deceased family.
In a statement, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) said it “vehemently denies that any actions of OCSO personnel caused the tragic deaths of Ms. Cannady and her two young sons,” adding that “numerous efforts were made by OCSO personnel to help Ms. Cannady and her children. However, she refused all such efforts made by OCSO deputies to help.”
“Importantly, at no time did any OCSO deputy have a legal basis to detain the family,” the statement continued. “After reviewing bodycam footage of OCSO personnel during that timeline, numerous statements were made by one former OCSO deputy sheriff that were not in keeping with OCSO standards of conduct for its deputies. An internal affairs investigation was initiated and the deputy resigned before a disciplinary review could be completed.”
The sheriff’s office said it would “make no further statements regarding this matter” due to the litigation by Cannady’s family.
Kazal is the officer who resigned, shortly after the deaths, the Free Press reported. He has maintained that he searched for the family twice and that the sheriff’s office wanted to make him the “fall guy” for other deputies who should have done more to help the family.
His attempt to join the Detroit police force was unsuccessful, and he now works in private security.
The Cannady family said they hope to force Oakland County and its sheriff’s office to be more responsive to vulnerable people from minority and underserved communities through their legal actions.
“Monica was in crisis — she needed help, and so did her children,” Fay Alexander, Cannady’s mother, said in an interview with the Free Press. “My family and caring members of the community tried to get that help, calling the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office again and again, begging them to step in. But instead of treating my daughter and grandchildren like their lives were worth saving, they were ignored.”
