Detroit’s mental health response unit was minutes away to help de-escalate a situation involving a 44-year-old Black man threatening to kill himself when a court bailiff serving a court-ordered eviction notice kicked down his front door and shot him to death in 2024.
That is according to a wrongful death lawsuit Sherman Butler’s family filed this month against the court bailiff, Craig Gerrell Gregory, who fired at least six shots at Butler after two Detroit cops had already tasered him.
The lawsuit also names Detroit police officers Chancellor Ferrell and Jose Martinez as defendants, accusing them of violating departmental policy when they followed the bailiff into the apartment and tasered Butler instead of waiting for the Crisis Intervention Team. The city of Detroit and the 36th District Court are also defendants.
Detroit’s Crisis Intervention Team is a specialized police unit with a mental health clinician, created in 2020 following the George Floyd murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
The program aims to de-escalate situations involving people experiencing mental health episodes, who studies estimate account for 20 to 50 percent of people killed by police each year.
“DPD directives required officers encountering an individual in a mental-health crisis to attempt de-escalation, disengagement, area containment, and waiting out the subject, and to defer to the specialized Crisis Intervention Team (CIT),” states the lawsuit filed in federal court on October 9.
“Defendants Ferrell and Martinez disregarded this directive by confronting Mr. Butler and forcing the encounter to a violent conclusion rather than waiting for the CIT unit and mental health clinician who were already dispatched and en route.”
On July 12, 2024, Detroit police drove to Butler’s apartment to assist the bailiff in carrying out the eviction of the Black man in a call logged as “mental not violent” by the dispatcher, the claim states.
Bailiff Gregory, who was already at the location, told the arriving officers that Butler “was suffering from a mental illness and was combative and highly agitated.”
Ferrell then requested help from the Crisis Intervention Team to de-escalate the situation, and dispatch told him the team was on its way with mental health clinician Michael Yanosy.
“Rather than securing a safe perimeter, maintaining distance, and waiting for the specialized CIT unit and mental health clinician to arrive—who were only minutes away—Defendant Gregory and the DPD officers decided to force entry,” the claim states.
“Upon entering, Defendants observed Mr. Butler inside his bedroom, lying on his bed, experiencing an obvious and severe psychiatric episode.”
“Mr. Butler held a yellow box cutter to his own neck, expressing suicidal ideation, telling the officers, ‘You’re going to have to kill me’ and ‘I’m not leaving.’”
The three defendants then began yelling “aggressive commands … further agitating him.”
At one point, Butler stood up from his bed, and the two cops tasered him, but the “Tasers failed to deliver a proper electrical charge due to poor connections,” the claim states, citing a Detroit police analysis of the taser log graphs.
“The pain-compliance deployment of the Tasers served only to further panic, disorient, and agitate Mr. Butler, who lunged forward,” the claim states.
“Defendant Gregory, backed near the bedroom wall, drew his personal .40 caliber Heckler & Koch semi-automatic handgun and fired multiple shots at close range into Mr. Butler’s torso, chest, and right arm.”
Doctors pronounced Butler dead at a local hospital.
Wayne County prosecutors cleared the cops and bailiff in the shooting, concluding they were acting in self-defense on December 3, 2024, and Detroit police released the bodycam footage later that month on December 23.
The press release from the prosecutor’s office acknowledges that the crisis intervention team was en route but makes no mention of the cops violating policy by entering the apartment before the intervention team had arrived.
Instead, it claims the cops and bailiff were trying to de-escalate the situation.
“The alleged facts in this case are far too common and evinces a continued need for mental health crisis intervention teams,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in the press release.
“The body-worn camera footage shows the 36th District Court bailiff did try to de-escalate the actions of Mr. Butler, and the police did call a crisis intervention team.”
“However, prior to their arrival, the bailiff had to act in self-defense and defense of others, and as a result, Mr. Butler is now deceased,” Worthy continued.
“The actions of the bailiff were not criminal given these circumstances.”
But the lawsuit states the defendants and cops escalated the situation instead of waiting for the crisis intervention team.
“Defendants aggressively breached Mr. Butler’s apartment, escalated the confrontation, deployed non-functioning Tasers, and ultimately shot him multiple times in the chest, torso, and arm, causing his death,” the claim states.
