Sadly, people of low status (jailed, unemployed, poor, etc.) are ALWAYS deemed to be liars, no matter how much objective evidence is in their favor. By contrast, a high-status person can say blatantly ridiculous things and be treated with respect. Consider our current president, among many others.
9
I don't understand the County Prosecutor's refusal to file criminal charges.
These facts would seem to support at least criminal negligence charges.
27
As long as there is PROFIT involved in locking up non violent offenders, prisoners are going to die, but Correction Corp of America and Geo Group are more interested in cost reduction and lobbying legislators than they are in providing humane treatment. Even state and municipal jails are motivated to skimp on inmate care and feeding. Wardens/administrators get perks for having leftover funds in the budgets, exacerbating suffering and deaths in custody. Many guards are low paid, overworked, badly trained people with sadistic streaks who are protected when abusing the helpless, and Republican legislators aren't much better, especially is inmates are minorities. If drug use were a HEALTH issue and not a CRIMINAL one this woman, and hundreds of others, would be alive today. Sad that to the plutocrats, bureaucrats and their hired minions many of us are worth more dead than alive. If we decriminalized drug possession and put enforcement/incarceration money toward outpatient therapy and counselling, we would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars that are now going to corporations and corrupt police departments who make a career dispossessing and repressing the disenfranchised. The rich eat the poor and in China, use prisoners as living organ donations on the hoof. I'm sure many in our criminal justice system are trying to find ways to exploit prisoners labor, their sexuality and their genetics for personal profit.
18
People you arrest can be divided into two groups:
a.) people you're afraid of because they were caught doing something violent
b.) people we're angry with because of a theft or offense against a sumptuary law (i.e. you are forbidden from owning marijuana in Indiana).
By locking both kinds of people up, we waste money. A LOT of money. Don't you like money? No?
Inmates do need to have something to do. Some kind of vocational work is possibly a good part of that. But what companies have to compete with the products of a factory staffed by slaves?
America: five hundred years of the same business model.
16
This is unbelievably outrageous. That's murder, or manslaughter at the very least. Not only a civil lawsuit, but a federal civil rights lawsuit, is more than justified. These institutions -- and the individuals who ignore life-and-death needs -- need to be held accountable. No more excuses. It doesn't matter if some inmates are "only" going through withdrawal, or if some inmates fake illness. You do not allow people over whom you have life-and-death control to suffer or die due to lack of medical attention. This is inhumane and unconscionable.
39
Depraved indifference is a hallmark of American society. We allow terrible suffering. Why?
19
How is this not, at the very least, depraved murder due to extreme indifference to human life? These guards deliberately killed her.
14
Where are the pro-life propagandists now? Were they “pro“ Ms. Dockery‘s life? Are they protesting this woman’s death, turning her children into orphans, at the hands of the state? Why don’t we start calling them what they are? “Anti-choice, Pro-death.” This is the United States of America and those folks control all three branches of government. (If they control the Senate, they effectively control Congress. With Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, they effectively now control the judiciary.) The next time somebody tells me I’m intolerant for calling Trump voters a ruthless gang of racist thugs, I’ll send this article and ask for a contribution to prisoners’ rights programs in Ms. Dockery‘s name. I won’t count on seeing the check. And no, I wasn’t exaggerating for effect, I meant it: they’re a gang of ruthless racist thugs. Oh, but we shouldn’t paint with such a broad brush. Really? Sometimes it’s that easy, and true.
32
The prison system and the military/corporate complex are the two cruelest faces of the American empire that most people don't want to think about.
12
I am stuck on the fact that this woman was in jail for a year for shoplifting. I think it's semantics to harp on the number of inmates that "fake" illness. The real question is why so many are in jail at all? Is this the only thing we know to do with every situation? arrest/lock up people?
36
All I can say is she looks so sweet and livelyc in that photo. Why did they take her kids unnecessrily? She probably didnt look like that at the end. Which should have made her more believable. I almost cried. I still feel like it.
8
It would behoove all American citizens to research and investigate how other countries handle ALL of the issues mentioned here and others that result from an unequal and stacked system especially for those whose SES status is at the lower level.
This is just a modern day equiivant of slavery and eugenics.
14
It would not be a national scandal just look at the state of affairs in our political climate no one cares certainly no one will care about an inmate.
5
This entire situation is an ongoing nightmare. Some prisoners lie, some are in genuine need of assistance, but what is most clear is that none of these lives matter to anyone who works in the prison system. Ms. Dockery was certainly no angel, but she didn't deserve to suffer and die at the hands of the craven people WE PAY to take of inmates.
I have no idea what the answer is, but compassion for all life would be a good start. Unfortunately, the reality of too many ruptured lives from petty and non-violent crimes is that recidivism is high, and many never overcome their personal challenges.
That Ms. Dockery is no longer suffering is about the only thing good to be said about this. So sad.
16
The County prosecutor’s statement makes it seem as if there is no legal remedy for this kind of systemic negligence. But there is, in fact, federal law regarding the right to care and negligence in how an inmate’s medical need(s) are handled. Correction officers aren’t trained to make decisions about the veracity or reliability of a medical complaint, and staffing issues are the jail’s problem to address separately from an inmate’s access to care. The log entries and verbal reports reflects a level and kind of ignorance and callousness that have been addressed in the past by stipulations resulting from legal claims against negligence in state prisons.
24
That the jail system has no established medical protocol for handling inmates with medical complaints is outrageous. This should not be so complicated. I suspect the bottom line here is budgets, along with racism. Who cares about paying for doctors or medical staff or jail staff that actually know something about health care?
The country is moving in the wrong direction because everything is about money. I have heard of people dying because some emergency services now screen patient calls and decide whether the caller really needs emergency services.
If things don't change, one day, it won't just be black females in jail for probation violations who die due to medical neglect - it will be many more of us. We are not just "No Country for Old Men" (Cormac McCarthy) - we risk becoming "No Country, but for the Rich".
27
If this doesn't qualify as cruel & unusual punishment, I am not sure what does.
42
During the aughts, I witnessed this treatment of female inmates firsthand, when I served several short time terms at Los Angeles County Jail on petty charges as a result of an addiction. Female deputies often dismissed inmates’ health complaints, often saying, “Don’t bother me, unless you’re dying.” Inmates rarely get the benefit of the doubt and are automatically assumed to be lying when they bring health issues to the deputies’ attention. Deputies refuse to come to the aid of a patient who is down as a result of a seizure or something else. The deputies order other inmates to tend to her until medical — the nurses — arrive with a gurney. Apparently they are afraid of being sued. Ten years ago, a friend died in Men’s County Jail of a heart condition. The coroner who called me with news of his death said that she was told by the jail employees that he appeared ill all week. If that’s so, why wasn’t he sent to the medical ward before he ended up at the morgue? My dead friend was serving time on a old case for $5 of crack cocaine.
39
In SC, two non-incarcerated women were being transported to a mental health facility during the flooding that accompanied Hurricane Florence. The driver ignored barriers and drove down a closed road. The women were locked in the back of a van. When the van started floating, the driver and guard were able to get out, but the women drowned.
There is no excuse for this, just as there is no excuse for ignoring anyone in jail or prison who is suffering. I hope that Ms. Dockery's case brings real reform to the jails. A shortage of guards is no reason to deny medical care for anyone.
32
@Barbara I failed to mention that the driver and the guard were police officers.
5
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.
--Dostoevsky
50
If it can happen to her, it can happen to you. Or to your child. We should be filled with horror and outrage.
And we have become a gulag nation. Stalin would be proud.
We need to develop compassionate and sensible health care and mental health laws, and do everything in our power to minimize the suffering of poverty. We must build a strong, educated, healthy middle class, and a strong advocacy system and safety nets that could have helped Ms. Dockery (and so many others) in her time of need long before she ended up in that jail.
All that requires money and effort, and the democratic proposals to return to a wealth tax are sounding better and better so that we may restore some social order and justice to our country - so that we ALL may live (live! not just "survive", which Ms. Dockery was not even allowed to do!) in dignity.
30
This country‘s treatment of inmates is DISGRACE. Shame on what purports to be a civilized nation.
24
Had a friend who spent several days in jail in
Memphis, Tennessee. A disabled stroke victim prone to seizures, friends tried repeatedly to get his medications to him, to no avail. They were unable to get him any care at all.
21
The jail should be shut down. Ms Dockery was mistreated repeatedly. Her children permanently removed because of one injury? Not reasonable. Tragic.
18
Sean Hannity or Paul Ryan would likely respond to this article by noting that in the United States, health care is a privilege that must be earned by working hard for yourself or for an employer. So why should a prisoner be any more entitled to that privilege than any other American?
Besides, Offender Dockery ended up in jail because she made bad choices. She chose to commit crimes, to take drugs, and to violate her probation. What happened is the direct and appropriate result of the choices she made, and her lack of character that caused her to make those choices. Unlike socialist countries in Europe, America is about Individual Responsibility. There is no Nanny State to tax and tax and tax hard-working citizens, only to hand out their hard-earned euros to irresponsible criminals and drug addicts like Offender Dockery. In America, people CREATE opportunity through their own hard work and strong moral character, and successful people deserve to keep what they earned!
Offender Dockery's death will not be in vain if we make an example of her. She can earn some measure of redemption if her story encourages people to make the right choices, to work hard, obey the law, respect authority, and make themselves successful enough to EARN the privilege of health care.
(Note: I don't believe a word of this myself. But I know there are millions of people in this country who would shake their heads in approval and shout "Mega-Dittos!" That's the real tragedy.)
24
The most poignant piece of this sad tale is the fact that other inmates pooled their slim resources to buy a fellow inmate some Tylenol try to relieve her suffering. And they were present at her funeral. Those are the only bright pieces of a very grim story.
53
The truth was likely lost in a sea of lies....
4
The truth is that this woman would still be alive if the personnel at the faculty had taken her to a hospital for examination. Had she truly been faking, the doctors would have discovered it. The negligent and dismissive attitude of the personnel directly led to this women’s death and the disgraceful state of Indiana criminal code lets them walk away from it.
People like yourself who like to muddy the issue with vague statements about where the truth lies only contribute to the problem.
26
We are living in a sea of lies. Now this is just one more tragic place in our culture. I hope someone with authority cares.
7
This sounds like negligent homicide to me.
41
We don't treat animals as cavalierly and callously as we treat people in jail. Of the people in jail black inmates are treated worse. America the 'shining city on the hill'. What hill? What city?
28
I just spent $20,000 to save my dog, these guards couldn’t spend 20 minutes to save a human being.
15
Wow! I'm an emergency physician in Indiana. This is a travesty of injustice and negligent homicide if you ask me...
36
Thou shalt not kill? If only the anti-abortionists showed a commitment to the life of every born human.
30
"But the Elkhart County prosecutor, Vicki E. Becker, declined to hold anyone criminally responsible.
The guards were not culpable because “none of them expressed any belief that a stomachache could result in her death,” Ms. Becker said in an interview."
.... I have rarely heard of such garbage. Prosecute Ms. Becker for misconduct. She must be made to pay for this.
43
Had she given the same “care” to her children. SHE would have been prosecuted and punished. How is that once people are no longer babies their lives are less valuable?
35
We have turned everything into big business. From parking tickets to paying for a doctor's office printout on letterhead only, everything has a price attached to. Incarceration seems to follow that trend and then some. I am not saying it is an easy job to be a guard but it seems that prisons are running on are bones with untrained staff and those without compassion. And as we see a lower unemployment rate, we will see more and more people entering workforces untrained and ill equipped to behave rationally or with compassion.
19
So for all the false positives, we tolerate what % of true positives?
What % is too large? Easy to say if you are not negatively impacted by the percentage.
What profiles are used to screen inmates (i.e. who actually get medical attention? Why? Who does not get attention? Why?)?
If false positives are so frequent, why are there no formal training programs to address the issue?
What is best practice?
Lots of questions
2
It's good to hear from commenters who actually work in jails and prisons. Their complaint that many inmates feign illness to get attention or drugs is real, and it's the result of a confluence of failures in the criminal justice system.
Instead of drug abuse and mental health treatment, we incarcerate. We detach inmates from their family support systems with overpriced phone calls and by shipping them far from home. We underpay corrections workers, and allow facilities to become decrepit and overcrowded, leading to an inhuman and dangerous situations for both guards and inmates.
So tragedies like this death happen, and no doubt the families will sue and and be awarded millions by horrified juries.
Wouldn't it be better use of taxpayer money to properly fund our criminal justice system? But no politician ever got reelected by promising to improve prisons, and it's easier to ignore the mentally ill than pay for proper medical treatment.
150
@Elizabeth A @Elizabeth What is of particular interest to me here is that Ms. Dockery was dismissed as merely a user in withdrawl. A question remains is whether, if that WAS the case (it wasn't) a withdrawing user should be allowed to suffer, when there are less painful medical means to make that experience easier to bear. Perhaps had she had medical treatment for what they thought was withdrawl, her real problem would have been discovered.
this article by my colleague Jose Del Real is good follow up reading https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/nyregion/opioid-addiction-knows-no-co...
44
The only quibble I have your comment is that Ms. Dockery was not mentally ill, only poor, black and ill. “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:39
For shame, America.
22
The problem is not primarily ignorance or training. It is the devaluing of the lives of "them," if not outright sadism toward "them." Some of it is based on prejudices that workers bring with them, some of it involves a structure and culture where prisoners are in the position of the enemy.
We need to look to place like Norway, and the rest of Scandinavia, where inmates are treated like human beings. (Fat chance of that happening.)
32
“If you look at it objectively and logically, there is no criminal law in Indiana that would appropriately address what went on,” Ms. Becker said.
Well, that should provide the family comfort.
Once again it comes down to what police believe. I believe she wasn't going to die. I believe my life was in danger. What ever the police or guards need to believe is what the others in the system will believe and support.
The difference between your life and death could be what an office believes. And there will be no consequences if the belief is wrong except under extraordinary circumstances.
It is little different in our elderly care facilities. People who are institutionalized, for any reason, are viewed and treated as if they are less than human. Unless you die early you or have a lot of money it is fate awaiting many of us. Neglect. Harm. Indifference. Because people like Ms. Becker who could care less.
You don't even have to be in a controlled living arrangement. Look at the way airlines and transit employees treat passengers as cattle rather than customers.
20
I am shocked!
In Europe when a person is in custody the State is the only responsible for his well-being.
There can be accidents of course but this case seems a clear instance of neglect and ignorance.
I hope that family could have at least some compensation for their loss.
21
Reality Check untill we start treating mental illness as dissease our prisson system will remain broken. Better way to treat people give them jobs pay living wage. To pay to keep people prison far to costly an dangerous if we dont treat the disease. I just lost very close friend who died from being homeless. We tried to help her but disease was so bad she didnt even know she was suffering an ran away into streets. Question is how can so many people suffer this disease an left back into streets. Should be mental health for people on medicaid where people cared for life. Because alot times it will even get worse for these people. In end they may pass on but least we cared for them an provided safe place to end their lives.
8
It is horrifying that this is what our so-called “criminal justice” system has become. It appears that an awful lot of people working in that system are without conscience.
11
I don’t understand why jail staff are not be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license. They took it upon themselves to diagnose her condition (“drug withdrawal”) and further determined that she did not require further medical care, also a medical judgement. They were dead wrong on both of their medical decisions.
32
The death of Ms Dockery was horrible and certainly preventable. However, no amount of money thown at our penal system is going to fix the problem.
Our tax dollars need to be spent addressing the systemic causes that put people behind bars. Poorly funded public education, health care and lack of oppurtunity - combined with a lock ‘em up mentality - sentenced this poor woman to death long before she collasped on jail floor.
17
I am so sorry for her loss.
In today's America, what is the solution? Be born to a Billionaire, or suffer?
17
Agree money rules.
3
the family should absolutely sue. this is shameful treatment of a human being. so callous. it's amazing how little accountability is left in this country. people in managerial positions - whether at banks, the federal government, prisons, colleges - just shrug their shoulders and make excuses.
13
To discern whether race and class prejuice caused Ms. Dockery's death, imagine for a moment that a young, white woman with a college degree and an arrest for heroin possession that started with OxyContin prescribed for an injury, had landed in the same jail, vomiting uncontrollably, weeping in terrible pain, and asking to go to the hospital.
Can you picture for even a single second that her cries and repeated requests for medical attention would have been scorned as fake, that she would have been shackled and confined in solitary, that she would have been allowed to continue wailing and begging for help for a week without medical treatment, that would have been allowed to die?
It's unimaginable. Had this woman been white and educated, she would have been sent to the hospital in an ambulance on her first request.
The article says there have been no legal repercussions for the corrections officers who so brutally treated Lamekia Dockery. But the article says nothing about other consequences. Have they been fired? If not, why not?
As long as this can happen to a woman of color in America, none of us is truly free.
39
@Elizabeth @Elizabeth Thanks for weighing in. A story by my colleague Jose Del Real about who gets withdrawl treatment and who doesn't comes to mind.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/nyregion/opioid-addiction-knows-no-color-but-its-treatment-does.html
11
@Sarah Maslin Nir - Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the link to Mr. Del Real's story and will read it with great interest. Thank you for shining a light on this terrible injustice. Other commenters made excellent points as well, that a significant amount of the fault here lies with elected officials who provided so little training of jail personnel and so few resources to help with the care of its vulnerable inmates.
7
@ Elizabeth, Stowe, Maine. As a white, educated woman I can testify that all inmates are treated equally bad, having served several short stints in jail for addiction-related offences. Whites don’t receive special treatment. It’s disappointing that we can’t use our white privilege card during that terrible time. In fact, white women who “whine” and expect better treatment are likely to be punished by deputies by being placed in an isolation cell and denied privileges, like watching TV, for a spell. Deputies prefer inmates who go with the “program,” so to speak. That is, they are quiet, follow the deputies’ orders, and don’t ask a million questions of the staff. Yes, minorities can make a case that their white counterparts receive lighter sentences in the courts, but in the correctional facility, whites are a viewed by the deputies as a number, a body, like everyone else.
9
It's terrible that this women died such a cruel death.
But it might very well have still happened if college humanities professor were acting has her guards, because the over-riding context of this case is that prisoners cry wolf so frequently about fake medical problems.
3
Medical professionals, included RNs, can discern whether a person is feigning illness or not. It is outrageous that a facility like that does not have a single medical professional on a regular basis to examine inmates. I can't believe a person would have to be escorted to a medical center - there are no infirmaries in jails???
6
I can’t imagine the stress the workers are under. But that does not forgive an inch of what occurred here.
Systemic racism kills.
The situation that got her there is also biased. Note the other NYT article today on public defenders and the general quality of their legal representation.
Why was not one human who encountered her that day compassionate enough to take a minute. And frankly, even if it was withdrawal is it necessary that people suffer that much?
Shame on us.
10
Tiffany Faigh, the work-release coordinator, wrote in an email to seven other employees. “She claims she hasn’t ate since she has been here, which is probably why her stomach hurts.” “She claims…”?
Read the log. They know if she has had food. How can Ms. Faigh make such a statement? Ms. Dockery was in constant custody! Do Indiana inmates have free rein to roam about the jail and nibble on readily available food just waiting to be served? It’s a jail, not a cruise ship.
This is an example of nonmedical personnel making medical diagnoses and decisions because ‘in their experience’ they’ve ‘seen this so many times before.’ They decided to apply others’ outcomes to this person’s symptoms because they believed she ‘just like all the other fakers.’
It does appear that the family is right. Ms. Dockery was treated as a disposable person who, in the minds of those who routinely ignored her pleading in spite of mounting documented data to the contrary, decided she wasn't worthy.
For Indiana, or any State, to blame the death on lack of funding or a lack of personnel indicates that the party knows there is a problem, but the cost benefit analysis favors negligence. Personnel are in stuck the middle.
This is no less a crime than the Ford Pinto case where Ford Management determined in its cost benefit analysis that the $11/Pinto and time to fix the exploding gas tank design was more costly than the probable law suits would be if brought by owners or family members of deceased owners.
15
I do not believe that there aren't laws in place to protect inmates. They are there. Prosecutors pick and choose just like the prosecutor in this case. I believe their formal training requires that they get medical help for people who say they need it. The fact that they don't might be more about peer pressure of other guards and co-workers. Hold them accountable. Otherwise, explain to me how one guard says, "shackles" and the other says, "it's not right". Formal training versus being cold blooded because maybe your just not the right person for that job!?
16
Corrections staff probably get jaded quickly by prisoners faking illness. But really, who can fake vomiting?
Corrections facilities need medical staff on-call. You can’t expect the staff to evaluate the medical condition of prisoners, except for basic first aid situations. What a shame this is for everyone involved.
When people say they are going to die, they are usually right.
205
@KathyGail
It's not hard to induce vomiting; bulimics do it all the time. Jailers get cynical about inmates, many of whom are manipulative liars. That doesn't justify neglect, but does explain the attitude of jailers.
17
@Jonathan Katz
To vomit voluntarily, you need something in your stomach to come up. Since the poor woman was not eating at all, clearly something was wrong physically. But since we treat jailers and prison guards little better than the inmates, giving them little information, education or support, the awful results are easy to predict. Jail and prison guards are very low on the social hierarchy, so we let them look down on their prisoners to make them feel better.
25
@Jonathan Katz Can we please say "people with bulimia" instead of reducing people to their diseases. Additionally, people who are NOT incarcerated can also be manipulative liars. This woman appears to have just had some really bad luck. Her "crimes" were related to marijuana & "retail fraud". She was not a hardened criminal. My heart breaks for her family.
1
We tell a similar story in Alameda County California. Dozens of deaths over the past years, the birth of a baby in solitary confinement, gaps in provision of psychotropic medications to diagnosed inmates, the horrors in our 2 jails go on and on. My church is working with a criminal justice organization, the Ella Baker Center, to hold Sheriff Ahern accountable. We are pressuring the elected officials to audit the Sheriff - the only accountability mechanism we see is fiscal. Electeds hold the purse strings, nothing else.
120
In a Washington State jail for 10 days, my brother was not allowed access to insulin. He went from jail to the hospital, and could have died. Thank you for calling attention to the selective witholding of medical care in jails. Incarceration should not be inhumane in America.
280
Isn't withholding needed medical assessment and treatment, including legally prescribed medications that are administered at specific intervals, cruel and unusual punishment? Doesn't the Constitution of the United States of America prohibit cruel and unusual punishment? It's not even like she was a convicted torturer or mass murderer who some might say deserved to suffer a bit.
45
meanwhile, white collar criminals who have destroyed thousands of lives through greed spend their time at country club-like facilities...
42
The jail employees killed her with their ignorance, cruelty and stupidity. They should all be held accountable.
28
Sue that jail out of existance .... they deserve to disappear
12
To Mr. Claiborne:
Why do you think a civil case has not yet been filed? Is Elkart too cozy? Is no one up to the task? Does this seem like a viable case to you?
6
The sentence for violating probation isn’t death. Let alone death by prolonged blood poisoning.
It’s difficult to see prisons and jails — or the vast majority of them — as anything other than kennels for America’s underclass. Especially seeing as most of the inmates have but the vaguest glimmers of legal counsel.
I suspect future generations will view these places as we regard the Roman coliseum or the antebellum flesh-markets. As barbaric and cruel, and a moral failing of the highest order.
20
There have been too many stories like this and the outcome can always be summed up with the same language: poorly trained, grossly under-qualified penal staff workers making life and death decisions about the inmates they oversee, often with an indifference that borders on the grotesque if not sadistic. Better training is the obvious response. But we clearly need to better codify a jail inmate's bill of rights. And we need to criminally prosecute those on staff in detention facilities who violate it.
14
For this woman and what she suffered, justice needs to be served. There should be no excuses in righting the wrongs. There should be no hesitation in filing a civil lawsuit. My heart goes out to her family, especially her five children who deserve to know the truth of what she endured and sacrificed her life for.
9
When you designate a segment of the population as surplus and expendable this is the sort of thing that happens.
Nobody will be held accountable because the people who run American society are not interested in accountability for such incidents.
As a people what we need to do is to take a good hard look at our criminal justice system, from top to bottom, and ask ourselves what we really want out of it. But to ask for that is one thing, and to actually have it happen is quite another.
Mahatma Ghandi, who knew a thing or two on the subject, once commented "'The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members." I can guess what he would say about the carceral state that is now the US of A.
15
The guards were not culpable because “none of them expressed any belief that a stomachache could result in her death,” Ms. Becker [the prosecuter] said in an interview.
Staff members receive no medical training that could have helped them assess Ms. Dockery’s condition. “I am pretty sure she is going through withdrawals,” Tiffany Faigh, the work-release coordinator, wrote in an email to seven other employees. “She claims she hasn’t ate since she has been here, which is probably why her stomach hurts.”
That's the point -- no medical training to assess her condition -- but they assessed it anyway: "pretty sure" its's withdrawal; "probably' her stomach ache due to not eating. If you are not medically trained your duty is to call someone who is and if someone dies because you are practicing medical diagnosis without a license then you are guilty of criminally negligent homicide (involuntary manslaughter). The failure to prosecute is a political, not a legal, decision.
17
No one is held accountable kind of says it all. These people are treated as disposable. Another example of America the Great.
11
I am a pediatrician. If a mother, ignorant of medicine, neglected her five-year-old and death ensued, she would be prosecuted at least for neglect, and possibly for involuntary manslaughter. The incarcerating authorities are equally responsible as the guardians during incarceration. Why is this any different?
23
Obviously these guards missed what was a true medical emergency. But I also wonder how many times the guards have seen prisoners that are complaining of medical problems that turn out to be completely fine or having withdrawal symptoms that turn out to be fine. In my experience as a doctor, I’ve seen many cases where people suddenly develop medical symptoms right when they’re arrested in hopes that the police will release them when they get to the hospital, Which often happens with low-level crimes. Police often do not have the manpower to sit at the hospital for hours while people, who usually in the end have nothing demonstrably wrong, are evaluated. I am in no way excusing what happened, because obviously the guards helped create a tragedy and more compassion and good judgment would have gone a long way. But I think it might be a little bit of a ‘needle in a haystack’ situation because the guards probably do see many people withdrawing from opiates for example or many people complaining that turn out to be not to be serious at all.
I think any reasonable medical person would’ve sent this person to the hospital, but it might be asking too much for guards to make that distinction
I always get nervous about the sometimes hasty judgments against the guards and other prison/jail staff. I don't have any sympathy for their actions - trust me. But they are easy targets and scapegoats for what is certainly an issue beginning at a much higher level.
As mentioned throughout the comments, they are not qualified medical professionals, are understaffed, and might lack the critical thinking skills to know what to do. Of course, they might just be heartless.
The danger here is that we neglect to hold the real culprits responsible. We miss the forest for the trees. The poorly-educated guards are the perfect props for city and state officials as well as the private prison magnates to use to deflect blame. They're just the ill-mannered brutish people that are easy to hate, when they themselves are likely victims of other socioeconomic ills.
I am deeply sympathetic to this woman and her family. However, I hope that in discussing this as a greater issue, we don't pit the poor/marginalized (even if, of course, to greater/lesser degrees) and focus on the more dangerous and powerful culprits.
10
The tragic story of Lamekia just makes me weep. This is a crime of torture. Speaking from experience, women in pain are not taken as seriously as men. Every jail should have a medical professional available. No excuses. It is better to err on the side of mercy.
11
Public institutions need to be funded and run to serve the public good. When elected officials allow people to suffer and die for no other reason than they are being held in jail temporarily, the public good is not being served.
5
I spent the better part of thirty years representing people who were injured or who died as a result of being “ignored to death,” as a lawyer said in this article, so I recognize negligence when I read about it.
In hindsight, the facts of this unfortunate tale are easy pickings for lawyers and forensic experts, but one of the commenters here who worked in a jail gives a contrary perspective. She noted that a huge percentage of prisoners complain about pain, often faking (or provoking their own) symptoms.
This is a sad story but prison guards aren’t trained to do a differential diagnosis of prisoners who are asking to be sent to the hospital. And people would rightly howl if local governments had to transfer every prisoner to the ER upon demand.
Such a perspective will seem harsh to grieving family members, but tragic and anecdotal reports like these surely represent a small fraction of the instances of prisoner pleas for medical assistance. Prisons should work on risk management in this area but there’s little hope that they could meaningfully ferret out the “real” from the fake complaints.
19
I agree with your comments. It’s a lot to ask of the guards to determine who is having a medical emergency. I am sure there is a lot of people in prison who complain of various symptoms that turn out to be fine. It’s still a tragedy what happened to that lady, and I think some compassion and better judgment would have helped, but guards are not doctors or Medical professionals and should not be held to that standard. I do think though that if someone makes persistent complaints, the guard should be obligated to at least have the jail nurse or equivalent look at them.
6
@ChiGuy
There is no reason not to have a designated medical person on duty to evaluate medical complaints. I've worked in and around jails and prisons. I know that inmates can fake complaints. But it's not worth anyone's life to ignore them. I suspect many "fake" complaints may be related to mental health issues, which should be treated, but often are not.
5
@ChiGuy Yes, of course, many inmates might fake illness. But that is still no excuse to let ANYONE, not even one person, die or suffer due to lack of medical care. If you can't provide the resources to oversee this, then DON'T HOLD the people in custody. If you have life-and-death control over people, you have a moral (and hopefully legal) obligation to prevent this. Doesn't matter if some are faking or some are "only" going through withdrawal. No excuses. Outrageous.
9
The heartless and cold responses to her complaints says everything that needs to be known about how bias operates in the real world. Disgusting.
But will Indiana, a state that revels in and parades its religious and Conservative attitudes, do anything? Questionable.
32
What needs to be understood is the breadth of immunity granted governmental agencies and how the breath of that immunity continues to expand by court based rules created by Republican judges. Alawyer can go broke filing a civil rights lawsuit and just about no Americans know that or don't care because they think it could never happen to them or theirs. The immunity hurdles to obtaining justice in such cases is a dirty little judicial secret.
15
Where is ACLU when you really need it? This has wrongful death written all over it. Bankrupt a few of these outfits and they will take notice. Sure, there may be local ordinances, state laws or even federal laws to protect them. That is why you need outfits like ACLU. Remember Kent State 71? Yeah, Ohio finally got away, but after a few decades. These people know cost-benefit. When it costs them a lot, they will provide the benefit!
8
I didn’t see any mention of an autopsy. What was the official cause of death?
2
She died of sepsis, caused by a perforated ulcer. It's in the beginning of the article.
3
@CoastalKate The article says sepsis.
How do those guards sleep at night? The cruelty to this woman is inhumane and immoral.
The family should definitely sue!
I hope the NYT continues to follow this story. Follow up with the guards. Follow up by exposing more about the extremely incompetent, dysfunctional system that allowed this to happen.
My heart breaks for all who are being mistreated in prisons. It is just plain disgusting.
We are better than this, America.
20
It's sad. Most Correction Officers only receive minimal medical training, usually just first aid/ CPR/AED. They also have to deal with drug users going through withdrawal, and can often mistake such symptoms with legitimate medical issues.
8
What a cruel society we are. What an uncaring society we are. Whatever claims that we make to be a nation of Judaeo-Christian values, this story proves emphatically to be a lie!
27
Cruel and inhumane treatment. These COs acted presumptuously, as if they had medical training. They displayed a callous & tragic indifference to her horrific suffering and plight. And they all were criminally negligent and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. A gross travesty and miscarriage of justice!
14
Boycott Indiana. Boycott that county.
Corporations should be outed if they plan conventions there. Sports teams should take a stance. Avoid sending your out of state students to their colleges. “Just say no” to tourism there. If they won’t hold anyone accountable, they should suffer.
Personally, I was never going to visit, anyway.
Shameful.
10
Government cover-up of misdeeds is very common. And, it is common for the protection of professions as well. Organizations such as the Medical Board of California for physicians and The State Bar of California for lawyers have time endless investigations of complaints in which nothing is done. I have had personal experience with both involving a very serious food borne illness I suffered in October, 2017 and associated with both federal and state government agency malfeasance in which agency employees cannot be held accountable for their misdeeds. There are well-compensated people and standard procedural processes in place that constitute institutionalized obstruction of justice.
2
This is the sort of story I can't bear. I have always believed that a society is judged by how well it treats it's weakest and most downtrodden, and the fact that someone in the custody of the state could be treated with such indifference and as a non-entity is immoral and repugnant. People who fail to respond to a human being's cry for help should not only be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows, but should be prepared to reap the scorn of every decent person who thinks that denying help to someone clearly in need of it is about the most vile thing a person can do because it's the BASIS of what makes humans different from all the other beasts of the planet - supposedly.
20
Why are prisons so appalling in the USA? I'm beginning to believe that a single life has little value there. Only money counts. My sympathy to her children, her family.
27
This entire story is based on a medical condition you can only describe as "probably" being the cause? With that you are ready to blame anyone and everyone, with the exception of the one person who had actual control of the situation. No crime committed, no jail. No drugs, healthier body. She was even free and on parole, but she violated that.
4
If a story like this emerged from any situation where hostile enemies were imprisoned there would be congressional hearings and likely a number of prosecutions or career terminations. It is just horrific , and should never happen to any person. Such is the triumph of neglect and prejudice.
10
Putting a legal name on it won't bring this poor woman back or remove the suffering she endured, but it sounds like involuntary manslaughter or intentional abuse of a vulnerable adult. It was disease that made her sick, but it was the criminal indifference and negligence of these callous correctional officers that ultimately caused her death.
197
This is just pure racism and sexism at work in a state where poor black women are barely considered human. Indiana has ensured that policies continue to prop up the long history of white male privilege. Everyone deserves medical attention in jail. This is quite heartbreaking. Thank you NYT for reporting on this story so she now has a voice. But we need to change policies and practices in the criminal justice system before unnecessary deaths like this.
27
Black women are consistently ignored in all aspects of society. Our physical and mental issues, daily racism, and it reaches all socio-economic groups.
But where a Black woman is the most vulnerable is where we have absolutely no power, within the correctional system. We are pigeonholed in the worst situation and my heart aches for this sister and her family.
24
I worked in a jail. The problem jail officials face is that about 50-60% of inmates will claim to be seriously ill in any given day. They induce vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, even fevers. People come in and lie on their medical intakes, they tell staff that they have cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and a whole host of other diseases when they don’t. It can be very difficult to tell people who are truly ill from people who just want to go to the medical facility to get out of where they are temporarily, and hopefully score drugs. Obviously cases like this are tragic, but it is not simply a case of unfeeling jail employees and officials.
54
With all due respect, I beg to differ. Unless the guards and other jail workers are licensed medical professionals in good standing and trained and authorized by the state to conduct differential diagnoses, they have no business deciding who has a real medical issue and who is doing a great job of faking one. Doing so despite lacking the appropriate medical degree and current valid licensure is called the illegal practice of medicine without a license. It is illegal precisely because it predictably and likely leads to injury and even death of those being "assessed" or "treated"
I have sympathy and appreciation for people who work in jails and other high-stress jobs, but true malingering is something that only an licensed MD or DO, preferably in consultation with a licensed mental healthcare expert, can determine, and even self-induced vomiting, diarrhea, and fever can be injurious and sometimes deadly, and clearly from this and other incidents, most jail workers are not capable, trained, or authorized to make such assessments.
From the report, this woman wasn't even a violent criminal and she most certainly didn't deserve the cruel and unusual punishment of an agonizing, scary, drawn-out death by sepsis, complete with complacent and complicit bystanders watching it happen.
I feel for her family.
114
@Nicole
Fine. Then put medical care in place in jails. That will both make sure that malingering is identified and that ill inmates get care.
This woman wasn’t just neglected, she was punished for her symptoms.
95
@Nicole I don't agree. The employees had to have been either totally ignorant or heartless to ignore 6 days of pleas for medical help. There is really no excuse for untrained people making a medical determination. What you have here is a state death sentence for a a minor criminal violation. This poor woman had health problems, addiction and perhaps mental illness, that led to minor criminality. She paid for it with her life. I hope her family does sue, because on if it costs them money will the prison system change.
86
Something else in this article caught my attention. Admittedly, the article was sparse on facts in this area, but if Ms. Dockery had been white and affluent, would her children have been permanently taken away from her in the first place, which seems to be the incident that triggered this whole, tragic situation? There have been unending instances recorded in the press about parents of color or poor, having their children taken away for incidents child services wouldn't have looked at once if the parents were white and affluent. This country has failed Ms. Dockery and countless other people who are poor or "minority" in so many ways, and continues to do so. America cannot be "great" or even considered democratic as long as people are treated like this.
37
@Cleota, this was exactly my thought. What happened in the "corrections" facility was an egregious and heartbreaking case of willful neglect and indifference to someone else's pain, but she ultimately ended up there through what sounds like a racist miscarriage of justice that snowballed into her total downfall. Stories like this leave me feeling angry and defeated. Our society, presumably based on "liberty and justice for all", is a sham.
12
I have not researched the applicable law and know only the facts described in this article, but it strains credulity that such reckless, willfully indifferent misconduct would not at least support charges for reckless endangerment and involuntary manslaughter. Unfortunately, prosecutors are often reluctant to hold law enforcement personnel, including correctional officers, to account.
25
"Ms. Dockery’s death might have been averted, had the guards and administrators heeded her requests. But the Elkhart County prosecutor, Vicki E. Becker, declined to hold anyone criminally responsible.
The guards were not culpable because 'none of them expressed any belief that a stomachache could result in her death,' Ms. Becker said in an interview."
So, Ms. Becker, will you also not be charging anyone with criminally endangering a child who dies of any natural or unnatural causes simply because of the child abuser's/neglector's lack of medical training, lack of imagination or empathy, or just plain lack of compassion and human decency?
33
@Patriot
I found that comment by the prosecutor especially appalling given that the same state removed Ms. Dockery's children for burns.
11
"The guards were not culpable because “none of them expressed any belief that a stomachache could result in her death,” Ms. Becker said in an interview."
Thank you very much, Elkhart County Prosecutor Becker, for providing an important, ground-breaking defense for pregnant women accused of infanticide or child endangerment because of their drug or medication use or any other pretense for harassing, intimidating, or punishing pregnant or postnatal women. They now can claim that they "never expressed any belief that [certain behavior] could result in [an injury or a] death. Those women rightfully shouldn't be prosecuted.
But what about assailants and murderers? In your county, all they have to do, apparently, is claim they didn't believe what they were doing or failing to do to the victim would or could lead to the victim's injury or death.
So, as some church fathers used to say, it's belief alone that matters. In your county, under your interpretation of the laws, it doesn't matter how one actually behaves, so long as one's perhaps "strongly held religious (or other) belief" is that death or other loss couldn't happen as a result (with credit to the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby case for wording). It doesn't even matter in your view, what another reasonable person might make of someone for days writhing in agony and begging for medical attention -- whatever the possible causes -- just so long as the person in control of or wielding power over the victim didn't personally think so
28
In trying to protect the civil rights of mentally unstable people, the courts restrict society from hospitalizing them unless they are about to harm themselves or others. The result of this “hands off” approach is that many of the mentally ill self-medicate with alcohol and illegal drugs, and end up on the street, in jail, or in prison.
Police and jail/prison guards are trained to deal with “bad guys”, not with mentally unstable people.
The courts should allow the addicted and mentally ill to be hospitalized more easily, and when released to be kept under out-patient treatment so they do not end up in the street and in jail.
9
If I failed to find the medical cause of a patient with these complaints and they died, I would be sued for malpractice and could be sued civilly and bankrupted. How could they make medical decisions without any liability? How could they get away without sending this lady to the Emergency Room at least once to be sure she was not faking? They should be prosecuted under federal law if necessary and will hopefully face a higher court on judgment day.
37
@EPMD There's no way this administration will even consider looking into this.
3
My guess is that the guards are treated little better than the inmates by the people hiding behind the guards and on up the food chain straight through the communities and on to the Governor. Pence was the Governor there once. Only a particularly heartless man could pull off that particularly mean spirited stunt at a football game for all the world to see. The racism starts at home.
12
The mortality rate for prisoners in U.S. jails, state prisons and federal prisons is much lower than the mortality rate among the general population.
The mortality rate for residents of the United States is 849.3 deaths per 100,000 residents.
The mortality rate among inmates in U.S. jails is 140 per 100,000 prisoners.
The mortality rate for inmates in U.S. state prisons is 273 deaths per 100,000 prisoners.
The mortality rate of inmates in federal prisons is 262 deaths per 100,000 prisoners.
The numbers are not adjusted for age, but the median age of the prison is 36 while the median age for the general population is 38. (Long prison sentences have produce an aging prison population.
The small age difference doesn’t explain the large difference in mortality rates.
Mortality rates are lower behind bars because there is no easy assess to guns, drugs and alcohol. There are no fatal traffic accident. Inmates get better medicare the their counterparts on the street. The same is true of soldiers in units deployed to low-intensity combat zones. These units often suffer fewer death while deployed than in garrison.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mlj0014_sum.pdf
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mljsp0013st_sum.pdf
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/msp0114stpr.cfm
6
I've heard Venezuela is pretty bad. They aren't democratic - the person who got the most votes was cheated out of the presidency. And they lock up prisoners and basically violate their human rights. Hmm. I've also heard that in the U.S., they aren't democratic. The person who gets the most votes - twice! - was cheated out of the presidency. Plus, they lock up prisoners and violate their human rights. Perhaps it is time for us to invade the United States.
21
A constellation of factors killed Ms. Dockery: staff ignorance, staff lack of education, shocking inhumanity, and an indifferent legal system. What an abomination! Inmates are at the mercy of poorly-paid staff with at most a high school education, questionable ability to think critically, no initiative and no incentive. But the greater sin is the absence of readily-available medical staff and a policy of ongoing basic medical training for all staff. That, my friends, is a budget choice and an illustration of egregiously-misplaced priorities. The city mayor and county commissioners should have been held accountable for Ms. Dockery’s death. They sealed her fate.
162
It is extremely concerning that those in charge of overseeing prisoners are not "criminally liable for failing to provide help" because inmates are prevented from seeking medical care themselves. The prosecutor's reasoning is phrased as if those at the jail simply failed to take action in the interest of Ms. Dockery when in fact they actively withheld life-saving treatment. When people interpret the law as inmates having no right to protection, nothing will change.
47
As a county jail physician and medical director for nearly 17 years, I am appalled at the lack of attention this woman received while incarcerated. Negligence would seem to be the issue here, from an administrative policy perspective. It is not difficult to provide timely, appropriate, and compassionate medical care to inmates. Sign me, witness for the prosecution.
426
@MJG. Negligence would have been the case if she had seen medical staff and then been sent back with an aspirin. This woman died because of the bias that lives within the guards and within the prison system which assumed guilt even with pleas coming from intense pain and then prevented her from getting seen by a physician.
15
@B. Rothman Creating a barrier to access to medical attention is a basic form of medical neglect. That is what these jailers are guilty of.
14
@B. Rothman
One must differentiate between medical negligence and custodial negligence. This case is custodical negligence because the staff refused to have Ms. Dockery see a physician or other medical personnel. Bias or not, that is inexcusable.
5
No prisoner should be refused access to professional medical attention when requested.
Prisoners are more likely to have multiple medical problems and difficulties communicating with staff,
often compounded by serious mental health and substance abuse issues, which led to their incarceration.
Staff must be trained to follow clear protocol when problems arise. Often front-line staff with the
most direct contact with prisoners are poorly educated. Some guards I have worked with were not even
high school graduates. There are systems problems and skills problems to be addressed.
The prison systems should be held liable for miscarriage of justice and duty of care in these sad cases.
(Retired RN with 16 years full-time work on secure units in State prisons for mentally ill convicts).
313
Mostly, jails are dangerous because they are full of violent criminals who abuse (sexually and physically) weaker inmates. The guards either cannot prevent this or do not care;
prisoners spend much time together under minimal supervision. Solitary confinement may be the only safety, and even then aggressors figure out a way to get to their victims.
5
The title of this article is misleading: "'I'm Going to Die Here,' She Told the Guards. They Didn't Listen. " The second sentence should read, "They Didn't Care."
Under the state of Indiana's criminal code the state can take away an individual's liberty, but not consider that person a dependent? That's abhorrent, irresponsible, and completely illogical. Crimes against citizens, such as this one, are protected under the law, and minor infractions can draw a death sentence with no consequences for the community that deprived Ms. Dockery first of her liberty, then of her life - which it appears they had already ruined.
I cannot express how incensed and appalled I am by the facts laid out in this story. Perhaps a HUGE civil suit could motivate Indiana legislators to rethink and restructure their criminal code. But there will never be justice for Lamekia Dockery.
86
This speaks to the amount of faking that goes on inside the prison system. After a while, the guards become dispassionate robots unable or unwilling to assist. Is that right? No.
10
@Jeff I'm curious about your assertion of "faking". On what basis do you make it? Did you ever work in the criminal justice system? Were you ever incarcerated? Can you cite any research that supports it?
7
Unbelievable in this day and age. Since when are jail guards doctors. If she had sepsis she must have had a high fever. They could have at least called in EMT's..
25
How is it that guards can lose every drop of humanity and caring that they have? How is the job so dehumanizing that they repeatedly disregard the wails of a dying person? Obviously some of them become almost evil people. What happens to them? They probably didn't start the job as heartless people. I think a complete review of what happens to guards, at the prison and at home is warranted.
37
@William Schmidt see the movie or read about The Stanford Prison Experiment to understand how guards quickly dehumanize inmates and become cruel and sadistic.
2
I grew up near there. There’s a hospital close by. They could have called a police officer to accompany her. However, they aren’t trained or given agency to think, like so many others in the economy.
32
The mortality rate for prisoners in U.S. jails, state prisons and federal prisons is lower than the mortality rate among the general population.
The mortality rate for residents of the United States is 849.3 deaths per 100,000 residents.
The mortality rate among inmates in U.S. jails is 140 per 100,000 prisoners.
The mortality rate for inmates in U.S. state prisons is 273 deaths per 100,000 prisoners.
The mortality rate of inmates in federal prisons is 262 deaths per 100,000 prisoners.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mlj0014_sum.pdf
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mljsp0013st_sum.pdf
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/msp0114stpr.cfm
4
@William Case
Mortality rates are related to age.
These numbers are not corrected for age (much less comorbidities) and are therefore irrelevant.
62
What is your point? Because fatalities in prison are lower, this woman deserved to die a stupendously painful death? Really? Wow!
86
@William Case
Do a little more digging. As another reader has pointed out, these statistics use completely different metrics, thus making them irrelevant. Instead of being so anxious to present a contrarian viewpoint as a means of disregarding the humanity of our prisoners, in the future, please take the time to read these figures more carefully.
45
Willful torture followed by institutionally sanctioned indifference that leads to a preventable death. How is this not a criminal homicide? Those in charge of the jail should be arrested and tried before the law. Judgement is required and if guilt is demonstrated then serious punishment for this offense should be mandated by the trial court.
63
"Staff members receive no medical training that could have helped them assess Ms. Dockery’s condition. 'I am pretty sure she is going through withdrawals,' Tiffany Faigh, the work-release coordinator, wrote in an email to seven other employees. 'She claims she hasn’t ate since she has been here, which is probably why her stomach hurts.'"
The staff receives no medical training, but somehow feels qualified to determine the potential causes of Ms. Dockery's symptoms?
It's appalling that no protocol is in place requiring medical personnel to be called in, but equally (if not more) appalling that anyone could watch a fellow human being in such distress and not feel compelled to consult a medical professional asap.
191
Ethically, as soon as you deprive someone of liberty - I don't care if it's a parent, a teacher, a mental hospital, a jail, border security - you become solely responsible for their well-being.
When someone dies in intense pain then the perpetrator(s) deserve nightmares to the end of their days.
There may not be a law, but there sure as heck is a judgement upon your soul.
96
I wonder if the persons responsible and the county prosecutor refusing to hold them accountable will ever read the many comments here. Perhaps someone will provide them with framed copies.
14
The jailers in this story remind me in an eery way of the C-suite bankers who managed the firms responsible for the 2008 market crash. People who did something obviously wrong, something that certainly seems criminal, but something it turns out there is no law forbidding. The DA's frustration sounds sincere to me. Now the onus is on the Indiana state legislature and governor to fix their criminal code.
At the same time it is obvious that a procedure for doing something - like maybe calling an ambulence to take the person to hospital when an inmate in this work-release center compains of significant pain - needs to be established.
26
The algorithm for this would not be difficult. Severe abdominal pain. Send to hospital--nothing serious found--inmate returns. Abdominal catastrophe-- possibly life saved.
Severe abdominal pain. Keep inmate at jail--nothing serious--inmate recovers. Abdominal catastrophe--inmate dies.
This only requires a moderate level of thinking and a wee bit of compassion. Most definitely not rocket science.
72
It could easily have been appendicitis.
1
Something is seriously wrong with a system that allows people to die like this. Hopefully her death will not be in vain and changes will be made. This is very sad
53
Please, change a system that allows this to happen. Close this jail, add medical staff, add staff that will permit inmates to get medical attention, add medical training, reduce our prison population so that the workload is manageable for existing staff, fire administrators who say “there’s nothing we should do differently.” This was a 100% preventable death.
Shoplifting should not be a death sentence.
138
Close Indianna. I have never read anything good about this state. Last year they popped up in the national news about their 2011-15 HIV outbreak that more enlightened states would have avoided. Recently it was about former governor, a rabidly racist evangelical, one heartbeat away from the presidency, clueless about a civil rights protest at a football game. How do these people get elected? This institutionalized neglect is just one more in a long line that leads straight to an Indiana voter with a ballot paper.
25
@BBB
My late mother, who grew up in Elkhart, would agree with you.
12
I am so very, very tired of how powerless I feel to stop the public and private tides of abuse hurled at the poor, the darker-skinned, the newly arrived, the vulnerable. How did we go from the Kennedy-era 'war on poverty' to the Reagan-era 'war on the poor' so seamlessly? And how has it lasted so long? Where is, as a country, our collective humanity?
258
@Jane Smith
Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty -- not JFK.
10
@Jane Smith
Sargent Shriver was put in charge of the War on Poverty program by President Johnson.
2
Not only did this woman die; she died a prolonged, horrifically painful death. That is torture of the worst kind. And these "people" at the jail could not even scare up a nurse practitioner who might have been able to diagnose her? People who work in jails should be screened thoroughly for sadistic traits.
198
Where are the supervisors? What do they do, besides nothing? Do they have any training? Shouldn't they know more about addiction & illness, & shouldn't they have regular conferences & protocols to deal with inmates who have complaints of any kind? Are the c.o.s expected to not bother supervisors with any of their charges' problems?
33
This woman was tortured. Plain and simple. Gross negligence on the part of the jail staff. Ignorant and undertrained staff is no excuse. The executives in that county government should be held responsible.
122
How is this not a crime? Failing to seek medical attention for someone who died, horrifically, as a result? Something is very very wrong at this jail. I wonder who can do something about it — the ACLU, state representatives?
96
Poor, black, & dead. That’s your country ‘‘tis of thee.
120
@db2
But the real crime is kneeling for the national anthem, don't forget.
11
This woman should have been examined by a physician. How can a jail not have anyone who can provide medical assistance? Whatever the reasons for this woman being in jail have no bearing on the fact that she asked multiple times for assistance. They should be charged.
206
How horrific! And no punishment for the perpetrators? Unbelievable.
145
Dear Ms. Becker, Elkhart County Prosecutor
If you can vigorously prosecute an inmate for the death of a guard because actions may or may not cause his death. Example not calling another guard as guard lays dying of say heart attack. Then you can at least prosecute for this defenseless woman. Negligence is the only word you need to define for the court that is all. It's not rocket science. If an officer emailed that there are only 3 on night shift so we can't transfer her safely. The implication is that the officer felt she needed transfer but could not safely do so. Whose fault is that? That is the facilities fault into who's cares she was booked into. See in jail they serve the time, pay their debt to society. The states job is to safely make that happen. This case is a failure of that and the actions of every officer shows that. Maybe it not their personal fault because it is allowable in the county of Elkhart to staff a prison this way. If that is true then it's not for you to throw up your hands and say "uncle" you are hired for all citizens to protect not just the ones that pay you.
This happened in my state as well and the Feds admit liability. You could bring a case against them on behalf of the family as you see wrong doing which you've admitted as much in this article. But you won't.
54
@Karin Pretty typical, since cops in this county are never held accountable for jack.
4