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When Tim Peters started banging on a neighbor’s door and shouting about religion just before sunrise with a beer bottle in his hand, someone called the county sheriff. Neither the deputies nor Peters’ wife, Julie, could get him to calm down. He ended up in the medical unit at the Hernando County jail north of Tampa in April 2022. Video from his cell showed the 49-year-old handyman struggling with deputies. They pepper sprayed him. Then they covered his face with a mesh bag known as a spit hood. When it became soaked with saliva and blood, they added another one. Minutes later, Peters was motionless in a wheelchair. Jail staff spent nearly three minutes pumping on his chest to revive him before they took the bags off of his head. He died at a hospital the next day. A medical examiner noted the use of the spit hoods in her report but concluded that the cause of death was undetermined. “He was my best friend, and I was his,” Julie Peters said. “The person in that video, that was not the Tim I know.” Spit hoods, also called masks, socks or nets, briefly became part of the national debate about police use of force in 2020, when 41-year-old Daniel Prude suffocated after police in Rochester, New York, forced a hood on him because he claimed to have COVID and spat in their direction. A few police departments, like the one in Tucson, Arizona, have since stopped using the restraints. But many have not — and the deaths have continued. Police used spit hoods on at least 31 people who died in their custody between 2013 and 2023, according to an investigation by The Marshall Project and 10 Tampa Bay, the CBS affiliate in Tampa. There are no national reporting requirements on deaths involving spit hoods. And most departments that give patrol officers the masks don’t track how often they are used. Many departments have no policies on deploying the device — and among the ones who do, the rules vary wildly. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office, southwest of Orlando, said it doesn’t have a policy, and that spit hoods “are used when it makes common sense.” In most of the deaths the news organizations analyzed, medical examiners said they couldn’t determine how people died, or they cited other causes, like drug overdoses. The Marshall Project and 10 Tampa Bay found at least five cases where coroners mentioned spit hoods as a possible cause or contributing factor in fatalities. “One death is too many,” said George Kirkham, a Florida State University criminology professor who is an expert in police use of force. “We can say more people die from shootings or beatings, but the families of these folks are devastated just the same.” Mentions of spit hoods in deaths involving police can remain hidden from public view for months or forever. Sheriff’s officials in Florida did not initially tell the public that they placed two hoods on Peters. They revealed it only after 10 Tampa Bay reporters pressed the agency for more details and eventually obtained an unredacted 21-minute video of Peters’ death. MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/10-investigates/police-use-spit-hoods-safe-controversy-death-case/67-3a182e7f-d6b1-4080-87bf-a4168cd6246c ►Subscribe: https://on.wtsp.com/youtube ►Website: https://www.wtsp.com/ ►Facebook: https://facebook.com/10TampaBay ►X: https://twitter.com/10TampaBay