Pima County Attorney Laura Conover announced Thursday that her office is not seeking any charges against guards in the homicide of 37-year-old Wade Welch.
Welch died in the Pima County Adult Detention Complex on Aug. 16, 2022 after guards repeatedly tased him, piled onto his body, put a white spit guard over his face and strapped him into a restraint chair. When aimed at a person’s body, a police-issued taser can emit more than 1,000 volts of electricity.
Pima County’s Office of the Medical Examiner ruled Welch’s death a homicide on Aug. 30, 2022. Edited body-camera footage released after Welch’s death showed a grisly scene, where at one point guards are on top of him, and he says, “You’re killing me. You’re killing me.”
Sixteen months later, Conover announced in a news conference that there is insufficient evidence to win a conviction, which she said is the standard in seeking criminal charges against someone.
Melissa Welch, Wade’s older sister, told Arizona Luminaria following Conover’s decision that she has been waiting for this decision for more than a year. She’s been waiting for justice, she said, and that’s not what she got.
“I feel defeated. It’s like my brother’s life was taken, and they’re OK with it,” she said.
Welch is survived by his son who was 14 at the time of his dad’s death. Melissa has described her brother as her nephew’s best friend.
To arrive at the decision not to prosecute any of the guards, the county attorney’s office relied on the expert analysis of John McMahon, a 34-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, where he still works.
McMahon “specializes in strategic policy development; use of force, tactics, de-escalation tactics; and command and control of law enforcement critical incidents,” according to a biography provided by the county attorney’s office.
At the press conference, McMahon walked reporters through body-camera footage of the moments leading up to Welch’s death. The county attorney’s office also issued a timeline of key events captured in a bodycam, covering about five minutes.
At one point, McMahon, describing the actions in the video, said, “He continues his active resistance. Conrad [one of the guards] stuns Mr. Welch again in an effort to gain compliance. Verbalization continues.”
The verbalization at that moment was Welch crying out to guards on top of him, “Help me, help me, please. I have a heart condition.”
Arizona Luminaria asked McMahon for specifics about what guards could have done better, but neither McMahon nor Conover would answer questions outside the scope of whether or not a crime was committed.
“My comments about it being in compliance with procedure and law are exactly that,” McMahon said. “But when it comes to other procedural things, things that can be done better, I always feel obligated to point those things out because there’s lessons to be had in every incident.”
Conover said that there is a distinction between what guards could have done better and guards committing a crime. She said questions of what guards should have done “will play a massive role in the realm of civil litigation.”
Asked if guards should have called for medical help before Welch was laid out on the ground, unresponsive, and apparently not breathing, neither McMahon nor Conover would answer. Conover, a Democrat, is seeking reelection in 2024.
The edited body-camera footage from Welch’s August 2022 death reviewed by Arizona Luminaria showed that the standoff began at about 7:30 p.m. as guards attempted to transfer Welch into another housing unit. He resists. The following is a summary of the video.
Guards try restraining Welch as they corral him into the jail cell. A guard points the taser at him and pulls the trigger.
“Why are you guys doing this to me?” Welch shouts. As the altercation moves from the cell into the hallway, the frames show a team of Pima County jail guards swarming Welch, some piling on top of him, while at least one guard repeatedly tases him.
Guards pin Welch down, ignoring his pleas. “I need to go to the hospital. I can’t breathe. Help,” Welch cries out. A guard orders him to get on his stomach. A guard tases him. Welch’s pants are pulled down as a guard again presses the taser into him and shocks him.
Welch’s words are hard to hear as guards order him to stay on his stomach and stop moving his legs. Still on the ground with guards on top of him, Welch says: “Help me, help me, please. I have a heart condition.”
Guards order him to put his hands behind his back. “You’re killing me,” Welch says. “You’re killing me.”
Several guards stand nearby watching as another guard says, “I got cuffs.”
Some guards are keeping Welch pinned to the ground as he gasps, and gasps for air. Guards place a white spit hood on Welch’s head.
As they lift Welch off the ground, one guard says, “Something’s wrong with him.” Welch’s hands are cuffed behind his back. Guards move him downstairs and begin pushing him into a restraint chair.
A guard presses the taser against Welch’s right upper leg and shocks him again, and then again. Welch screams and guards can be heard saying, “Relax. Stop resisting.” Within seconds after that wave of electric voltage, Welch seems to lose consciousness, and guards call for medics.
A guard orders others to keep the white spit hood over Welch’s face. He isn’t moving when a quieter voice says, “Breathe.” Several guards are saying expletives, when the unknown quiet voice is heard again: “Stay awake.”
Welch is limp when guards release him from the restraint. They roll his body over, his wrists still handcuffed and underneath him on the hard floor
Finally, they pull the hood off his face, blurred in the edited body-camera video footage.
One guard says, “Do you want handcuffs off? There’s a pulse.” Another guard says, “He’s faking his ass off.”
At least a dozen guards stand nearby watching as Welch dies.
‘Actions are in compliance’
McMahon said that the guards were acting “proportionately in response to what Mr. Welch was doing.” He added, “The actions are in compliance with procedure and law.”
Body-camera video is a window into whether guards working for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department — the Arizona law-enforcement agency overseeing a skyrocketing number of jail deaths — violated their own regulations.
Those policies include a “duty to intervene” to “prevent the use of excessive force.” The department’s safety regulations for tasers also outline how to protect people who are already in restraints: A taser should not normally be used, for example, on people who “are handcuffed, unless they are physically violent and otherwise uncontrollable.”
There were at least seven guards shown in the body-camera video footage actively restraining Wade. In addition to the seven “focused correction officers” there were thirteen other “correction officers,” three nurses and 31 inmates who were “eyewitnesses,” according to an Aug. 31 Pima County Sheriff’s Department incident report obtained by Arizona Luminaria via a public records request.
Arizona Luminaria reviewed the Pima County Sheriff’s Department online policies. The regulations dated June of 2022, months before Welch’s death, outline steps to guide guards in protecting the lives of people inside the jail.
Tasers “shall not be used” when a person “is not actively physically resisting” and when they pose “no immediate threat of violence to self or others.”
Any guard, referred to as “member” in jail policies, participating or watching has a duty to intervene and “report when they reasonably believe another member is using, or about to use, force that is in violation of these policies. Members shall intercede to prevent the use of excessive force, if such intercession can be done safely and reasonably.”
16 months of waiting
The Pima County Attorney’s Office first announced last December that a report was “pending.”
Melissa said the year it took since that statement was a “delay tactic.”
She repeatedly said that a party independent of the county should have led the investigation. “They’re basically investigating themselves,” she said. “What do you expect?”
Conover argued the extended time it took for her office to release the results of the investigation was reasonable.
“Would we like to deliver news to a family in this kind of situation more quickly? Yes,” Conover said at the press conference. “Do we want to make errors in rushing to that? No.”
“We cannot be influenced by emotion,” she added. “We have to get it right. And that’s critical for public trust.”
Since the beginning of 2022, at least 18 people have died in the jail. Another 23 people have died over that same period within 30 days of being released, according to data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner.
While Welch’s death was ruled a homicide, contributing factors included “physical altercation with restraint, methamphetamine intoxication, hypertensive cardiovascular disease,” according to the autopsy report released by the medical examiner.
Stephanie Madero-Piña, a community member who has lost both her husband and nephew in Pima County jail, has become a vocal advocate for the rights of people locked inside, and their loved ones. Madero-Piña, who was at the press conference, said that the announcement of no charges “brings back all the emotions. It is so hard when this is your life.”
“They [the guards] were following procedure, but what about morals, what about the human heart?”
Amy Hernandez and Lisa Kimmel, attorneys who are representing Welch’s family in a civil suit, told Arizona Luminaria in a joint emailed statement that they will continue to hold county leaders accountable, specifically Sheriff Chris Nanos.
“Given that criminal charges were not brought by Pima County related to Wade Welch’s death, we are more determined than ever to hold Sheriff Nanos accountable in the civil case,” they stated. “This reaffirms the importance of our civil justice system.”
Welch’s mother and minor son are named plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit against several defendants, including Nanos, corrections officers and the jail’s health care provider, NaphCare.
Conover said that she had “an open honest direct conversation with the family” before the press conference.
“My heart is full of sadness at the amount of grief involved for this large family,” she said.
Melissa said of that meeting, “This was the first apology I got from any official.”
She vowed to keep fighting for her brother. Her attorneys said: “The family is more determined than ever to see justice served.”
“I don’t wish what happened to Wade on anybody, but what if it was one of their brothers,” Melissa said, breaking into tears. “I bet it’d be different.”
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