Police: Incident between horseman, officer ends in death

Authorities are looking into a Wednesday night death involving a Stonewall police officer.

Stonewall Police Chief Michael Street said Jonathan Sanders, 39, died between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Wednesday night, after a fight with a police officer.

Attorney Stewart Parish, who was Sanders' attorney and is acting as a spokesperson for the family, said that witnesses have told him Sanders was exercising his horse Wednesday night when he ran into a friend and had a conversation. At the end of the discussion the friend went to the Cefko gas station.

It's unclear where Sanders was when he called his friend's brother and said, "You might want to go check on your brother, the cops are harassing him at the Cefko."

Sanders was driving a buggy being pulled by a horse, Parish said, and he headed into a subdivision which had two entries which made a loop. Parish said Sanders went down one entrance and the officer, Kevin Herrington, went down the other. At some point when Sanders saw Herrington coming toward him, Parish said he pulled into his cousin's yard. Parish said Herrington got out with Sanders in that yard.

"We don't know why he was going after Jonathan, we don't know what the reason for stopping him was, we don't know what led up to this incident," Parish said, adding that he hasn't been able to talk to all the eyewitnesses yet.

That's when an altercation occurred. Details of that are sketchy by all accounts. Early reports had Herrington using a flashlight to strangle Sanders, but both Street and Parish have since said there was no flashlight.

Parish said as far as he knows, Sanders did not have a weapon, but that Sanders ended up strangled to death.

Street said the actual interaction that led to the altercation is part of the ongoing investigation. He wasn't able to elaborate much.

"It was at night and he didn't really know who he was dealing with at first," Street said. "An altercation did take place between 10:30 and 11 p.m., and at our request the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation was contacted and asked to come in and perform an investigation on the whole incident so we will have complete transparency with our department and our town."

Street said it's too early in the investigation to even comment on any of the elements of the case.

"At this point there's no clarification whether choking is the actual cause of death until the autopsy is complete," Street said. "At this time it would be premature for us to speculate on any of the events as they unfolded until all the witnesses have been interviewed. Law enforcement doesn't have the luxury of speculating. We deal in facts and truth, and in this instant as in any other, that's what we will do."

Clarke County Coroner Greg Fairchild says Sanders' body has been sent to the State Crime Lab in Jackson for an autopsy. MBI spokesman Warren Strain said the autopsy should be done Friday.

"Until we get all the findings back from that, it's too early to talk about it," Strain said.

Stonewall is a town of 1,100, and Sanders had crossed paths with authorities before. Circuit Clerk Beth Jordan said Sanders was out on bond from an April arrest for possession of cocaine, and that he had been convicted on charges of sale of cocaine in 2003.

MDOC Communications Director Grace Fisher said Sanders was given five years to serve with five years probation. He was released on May 23, 2007.

Sanders' arrest record also shows arrests dating back to 2001 for disturbance of the family peace, sale of a counterfeit substance, domestic violence, and some traffic violations.

Herrington, who Street said has never received any complaints of abuse of force or even any written complaints for anything else, is on administrative leave with pay as is routine in such a case.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.