When a Richmond Sheriff’s Office supervisor approached the family of a teenager who had just been pepper sprayed in the face at a Turnstile concert by an off-duty deputy who was working security, he asked how they were.

“Not good,” the teen’s mother said, according to body camera footage obtained by The Richmonder.

The father said he was “concerned,” and recapped how he got a call as the show ended from a Turnstile band member who was trying to connect him with his son.

“Then I get there and he is laying in the fetal position, pepper sprayed,” the dad said. “I don’t understand.”

Major Jeff Feighner, who coordinated off-duty assignments for sheriff’s office personnel to work security on Brown’s Island for the Sept. 24 Turnstile concert, said his office would “look into it.”

“And we’ll take appropriate measures to rectify it,” Feighner said.

One month later, the sheriff’s office is staying mostly silent on the matter.

Sheriff Antionette Irving indicated her office’s internal affairs division has finished a “preliminary investigative report.” But the sheriff hasn’t released the report to the public, and her office has invoked a Freedom of Information Act exemption to block its release.

The body camera footage revealing the aftermath of the pepper spray incident shows both the family and concert organizers were alarmed by what had happened. Backstage, there was intense frustration that someone from the sheriff’s office had caused an otherwise great event to end on a sour note.

“I was playing guitar and I got hit in the face. I’m in the band,” Turnstile bassist Franz Lyons told Feighner. “There was nothing out of control.”

The pepper spray incident at Turnstile’s Richmond concert made national headlines in music publications, but local officials have been slow to explain why it happened and what they’ve done to address it.

The Richmonder has filed several Freedom of Information Act requests related to the incident. The sheriff’s office has provided some records but withheld others.

Turnstile, a high-energy hardcore band from Baltimore, had been inviting fans to come onstage for the final song of its latest tour. The fan in Richmond was sprayed during that song as he attempted to climb onstage along with numerous other concert attendees.

The newly released body camera footage offers a new window into what happened behind the scenes as representatives of both the Broadberry Entertainment Group — the local company that produced the concert — and Turnstile’s own tour staff expressed shock.

“The parents are furious. They’re probably going to sue us. Or you, more likely,” Broadberry’s Jessica Gordon said to Feighner.

The body camera footage shows concert organizers saying the security plan never called for sheriff’s office personnel to be positioned in front of the stage.

“We work really well with law enforcement,” says an unidentified man who indicated he was involved in tour logistics for the band. “So that chaps my ass that we work this hard to have punk rock culture and community and have that kind of reaction from sheriffs.”

Multiple people in the video accuse the person who used the spray — which sheriff’s office documents indicate was Major Michael Ames — of lying about what happened by claiming it was an accident. The concert organizers reviewed video of the incident and seemed to all agree it was clearly an intentional use of pepper spray.

“He lied to my face and I don’t appreciate that,” the unidentified man said.

“To all of our faces,” echoed Gordon.

Irving has made few public statements about the incident and did not answer a follow-up question from The Richmonder about whether Ames has said the use of pepper spray was accidental.

According to sheriff’s office use of force policies, pepper spray “should be avoided under conditions where it may affect innocent bystanders.” Deputies are required to file a use of force report after deploying spray, even if working an off-duty assignment. Irving has not answered questions about whether a use of force report was filed after the Turnstile concert.

Feighner, the sheriff’s office supervisor responsible for coordinating staffing for the concert, completed an incident report that gives only a brief overview of the information he received. That report was created on Oct. 3, more than a week after the Turnstile concert.

It doesn’t mention the accusation that concert promoters were told the pepper spray was accidentally fired. The body camera footage shows that concert organizers played Feighner a video that captured what happened. His report refers to someone being “allegedly pepper sprayed.”

The incident report names the teenager who was sprayed and identifies a sheriff’s office lieutenant as a “witness” to the incident. The report also names Ames as someone involved, but only lists “other” in a section of the document that’s supposed to describe how Ames was involved.

The Richmonder is not naming the teenager who was sprayed because he is a minor who was 15 at the time of the incident, according to statements the family made to Feighner.

Under policies set by both the city of Richmond and Venture Richmond, the nonprofit organization that operates Brown’s Island as an event venue, off-duty personnel from either the Richmond Police Department or the sheriff’s office must be present for crowd control at every large event on the island.

Off-duty sheriff’s office personnel can make $50 to $70 an hour working events on the island depending on their rank and the size of the event, according to documents obtained by The Richmond.

In the body camera video, concert organizers say no one asked for the sheriff’s office personnel to even be in front of the stage, let alone use weapons to keep people away.

“It’s impossible for me to understand a situation in which a deputy would pull out pepper spray on customers and a band. There would have to be a gun for me to understand anything like that. It’s so wildly inappropriate,” Gordon said in the video.

In a statement to The Richmonder, Broadberry Entertainment Group indicated it is still deferring to the sheriff before commenting on the situation.

“Broadberry Entertainment Group will only be in a position to comment once we receive the final results of the sheriff department’s internal investigation,” the company said.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org