Another case of gross abuse in the care of psychiatric prisoners. It is very hard to believe that the shrinks would be ignorant of conditions like these. As seen in this report
All Timothy Joe Souders wanted was a shower.
Instead, the 21-year-old mentally ill inmate was locked in a segregation cell and shackled to a steel table. Four days later, on Aug. 6, the Adrian resident was dead, apparently because of extreme heat and dehydration, a doctor appointed by U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen concluded.
As a result, attorneys representing inmates in a lawsuit filed in the 1980s to improve prison medical care are asking Enslen to expand the case to include treatment for mentally ill prisoners.
During a hearing in Enslen's courtroom Wednesday, attorneys in the class-action suit played a video shot by Southern Michigan Correctional Facility guards and a surveillance camera showing Souders as he was led away in shackles to a segregation cell.
Video excerpts from the next four days showed his physical and mental decline, ending as personnel at the Jackson prison administered CPR in an attempt to revive him.
Souders' mother, Theresa Vaughn, sat in the front row and sobbed as she watched a courtroom television showing her son slowly dying.
Dr. Jerry Walden, an Ann Arbor physician called by the inmate's attorneys, testified a combination of the heat, lack of water and medications Souders was taking for bipolar disorder and numerous physical ailments, including high blood pressure and obesity, likely caused his death.
The state Department of Corrections had declared a heat emergency during the period Souders was shackled to the table. On the video, guards entering the cell can be seen wiping sweat from their faces and heard complaining of the heat.
During the four days Souders was shackled, he was not seen by a psychiatrist or other medical doctor.
"Tragically, there was not a psychiatrist on the staff at the time," Walden testified. "I think almost everybody dropped the ball, unfortunately."
Souders was not the only mentally ill inmate to die at Jackson in recent months. Without naming the inmates, Walden listed several others whose mental illnesses contributed to their deaths.
A schizophrenic inmate died Aug. 17 of congestive heart failure and liver failure, testified Dr. Robert Cohen, appointed by Enslen to monitor health care in the Jackson prisons.
Due to his mental illness, the inmate refused medical care, Cohen said. A request for a court order forcing him to undergo treatment was stalled in the Department of Corrections for five weeks.
"Instead, he died for lack of treatment," Cohen testified. "He needed help. Eventually, he died of a treatable illness, a very treatable illness. ...
"I find this chilling."
Most of the hearing, which continues through Friday, focused on Souders, who was serving time for resisting arrest, destroying police property and assault.
For an hour and 15 minutes Wednesday, courtroom spectators watched the video as guards entered the cell, shackled Souders to a table and periodically checked on him. As time passed, he became more agitated, cursed the guards and struggled with them. Repeatedly, he refused water.
Inmate Henry Franklin, who was locked in a nearby cell, testified he kicked on his cell door and hollered for guards to help Souders.
"They told me to shut up and mind my own business and stop kicking on the door," said Franklin, who is blind.
After he talked with attorneys in the case, Franklin said he was called before a disciplinary committee, locked in segregation and his medication for glaucoma and migraines withheld. After he was released from segregation, Franklin found his typewriter broken into four pieces and his cell ransacked.
"So you're telling me you had nothing for the pain, no drops for your eyes and no typewriter?" Enslen asked.
"Yes," Franklin answered.
On the video, Souders is seen lying naked on the table, as he became delirious or psychotic, crying and screaming: "Orange, red, yellow, blue, green. I'm ready to go home."
His mother, Theresa Vaughn, stood up and left the courtroom in tears.
On the video, a nurse came in with guards to check Souders' vital signs as he yelled: "I can't breathe! Pull this off my face so I can breathe!"
The nurse answered: "Mr. Souders, the calmer you are, the sooner they're going to stop this."
As the video ended, guards were seen administering CPR. Souders was pronounced dead about 4 p.m. Aug. 6 at Jackson's Foote Hospital.
Another inmate, Craig Shivers, testified it was Souders' desire for a shower that led to his being shackled.
As Souders walked to toward the showers last July 31, a guard stopped him and said he had to first ask permission, Shivers said.
When Souders' asked permission, "the officer bust out laughing," Shivers said. "The officer never said, 'no;' he never said, 'yes.'"
When Souders proceeded to the showers, the guard called for help.
Several corrections officers arrived, shackled him and led him to a segregation cell, Shivers testified, adding Souders did not resist.
"That's what shocked me," Shivers said. "He was very polite. He just wanted a shower. That's all he wanted. He just wanted a shower."
No comments:
Post a Comment