Associated Press
A Florida Panhandle county’s jail system is in turmoil after administrators fired its director after six inmate deaths in the past 13 months, three by suicide and three by natural causes.
The first death under director Michael Tidwell, who was fired last week, came just months after a 2014 explosion killed two inmates, injured 200 and destroyed the main Escambia County jail. The explosion happened under Tidwell’s predecessor.
The county commission met Thursday to discuss the problems and agreed changes needed to be made to the jail’s medical procedures. The commission is considering hiring a full-time medical director to oversee jail health care.
“These problems are not hypothetical; they are real and they are continuing. We have to stop and change course,” County Commissioner Steven Barry said during the lengthy debate.
In Florida, most jails are overseen by the county sheriff, but the commissioners took operations away from Sheriff David Morgan in 2013 after a dispute about budget cuts. It was the third time since the early 1990s that control of the jail had changed hands.
The explosion at the 600-inmate central booking facility happened less than a year later, in April 2014. The blast was caused by a gas leak after heavy flooding in the facility from a major storm.
A grand jury said there was not enough evidence to charge jail officials with criminal negligence despite records of inmate complaints about a heavy gas smell before the explosion.
The explosion has caused cramped quarters in a second jail building now used for booking and to house some inmates.
Conditions are stressful for staff and inmates, said Chip Simmons, assistant county administrator and interim jail director.
But Simmons said the stressful conditions are no excuse for the high number of inmate deaths.
“The way things are going is not acceptable. Our goal is zero deaths in the jail,” he said.
Charles Brumley‘s son hanged himself at the jail with a sheet tied to a shower head on Nov. 2, 2014. Brumley, who has sued the county for negligence, said Thursday that the county did not do enough to keep his son and other inmates safe.
James Brumley, 48, was in detox and was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes. Jail staff did not do the checks on time, Charles Brumley said.
“He was not given adequate access to mental health and he was not monitored,” said Brumley, who also questioned why the jail had shower fixtures that would allow an inmate to attach a sheet and use it as a noose.
Commissioners said they are disturbed by reports that jail officials failed to promptly notify some families of an inmate’s hospitalization or death. Simmons said he has changed jail policies to ensure inmate complaints of illness are quickly addressed and that inmates’ families are notified promptly of any issues involving an inmate.
The county is planning to build a new jail, but Commissioner Doug Underhill said it cannot afford to wait before making major changes.
“I want to be optimistic about what we are doing, but it seems like we have dug this hole deeper with every step we have made so far,” he said.
Margaret Noonan, a statistician with the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, told The Associated Press that it’s difficult to look at the number of deaths at the Escambia jail and compare it with others. The conditions caused by the explosion have created “outliers” that make the jail an unusual case, she said.
Noonan said it is not uncommon for larger jails like the Escambia County Jail to have multiple inmate deaths in a given year, but she could not say what the average number is.
Escambia County has reported an average daily inmate population of between 1,200 and 1,900 inmates over the past 10 years, she said.
“It would be more unusual if Escambia had no deaths or even just one death annually,” she said.
Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
