Last year, an RFT cover story detailed a brutal beating at the downtown City Justice Center, which was captured on surveillance video. The attack on the victim, pseudonymously named Edward, appeared to be undertaken with the blessing of a corrections officer named Demeria Thomas.
The story made international news, though Thomas’ motivations remained unknown. Now, a Fox 2 News interview with one of the assailants has shed light on the situation.
Inmate Kevin Moore said Edward’s "cussing back and forth" with Thomas inspired her to order Moore and another inmate, named Antonio Holt, to beat Edward.
"I think I'm maybe even more confused,'' Edward's mother tells the RFT, about this revelation. "I know I'm more angry now, knowing that this was all just over words."
The surveillance video, taken March 22, 2021, shows Moore and Holt chatting with Thomas at her guard station. Thomas then stands idly by as Holt enters Edward's cell and beats him for about thirty seconds. Edward is seen on the footage falling over his cell's toilet. Holt continues to beat him while he's down. Moore then enters and strikes Edward several more times.
When other inmates hear the assault and approach the cell, Thomas orders them to stand back. After the beating has been going on for a full minute, Thomas slowly walks over to the cell and puts an end to it.
"He's dead," someone can be heard yelling, though this turned out not to be true.
Thomas has since pleaded guilty to federal charges of depriving an inmate of his civil rights. She is scheduled to be sentenced on those charges May 10.
Because of the "cussing back and forth,” Thomas ordered Moore to attack Edward, Moore said in the Fox 2 interview, saying that if he didn't comply he'd be sent to the hole. According to Moore, Thomas also threatened to hide a weapon in his cell and to accuse him of sexual assault. After the beating, Thomas gave Moore $20 worth of marijuana and five cigarettes, he said.
"I don't see why she would have gone to that extreme over words," Edward's mother says now. "I just don't get it."
“His aka is Crazy Moore,” Thomas's defense attorney Terrence Niehoff told Fox 2, “and he is telling a story to shift the blame instead of stepping up and admitting he was wrong – like Demeria.”
In his interview, Niehoff made note that Moore is still facing charges from a 2019 robbery at Behrmann's Tavern in south city, which originally sent Moore to jail. This surveillance video also went viral; in it, as Moore robs the bar and points a gun at customers, an unfazed patron remains on his bar stool, calmly smoking a cigarette while other customers hit the floor. We dubbed the patron, Tony Tovar, the “World’ Chillest Man.”
Thomas faces third degree felony assault, in addition to the sentencing for the federal civil rights charge.
Edward's mother says, more than a year after the attack, her son remains in pain every day, and has developed a stutter.
"I feel like [Thomas] should have more charges against her," she says.
