Dr. Justin Spies alleges unlawful arrest and punitive detention conditions in public comment to Shawnee County commissioners

During the public‑comment portion of the Feb. 19 meeting, Dr. Justin Spies told the Shawnee County Board of County Commissioners he was "unlawfully arrested inside the Topeka Police Station on 09/08/2025" and described events he says occurred while in custody at the Shawnee County Adult Detention Center.

Spies said that after booking, county jail staff became "aggravated" when he declined to answer non‑identifying questions, that staff stopped his bond, placed him on suicide watch, and subjected him to a use of force during which he was stripped and left naked in a continuously lit isolation cell overnight for roughly 16 hours; he said he was not allowed to make phone calls during the approximately 20 hours he was detained. He read a list of counts from lawsuits he said he filed: first‑amendment compelled speech and retaliation claims; Fourteenth Amendment due‑process and punitive‑conditions claims; excessive‑force claims; supervisory‑liability claims; and municipal‑liability claims naming the Shawnee County Commission and multiple correctional officers and nurses in individual capacities.

Spies said he filed a suit against Topeka police officers and the city on Feb. 10, 2026, and a separate suit against the Shawnee County Commission, jail corrections officers and a jail nurse on Feb. 11, 2026. He also alleged that when he sought records of his confinement through an open‑records request, the Department of Corrections sought to charge him $190,818 for those documents; Spies said that fee would violate the Kansas Open Records Act and indicated he planned additional legal action.

No county official provided a substantive response during the meeting. The comments were recorded as public testimony; the board took no immediate public‑record action in response.