This post was originally published on Sacramento Observer
By Genoa Barrow
It’s not uncommon to see people waiting outside the Sacramento County Jail – typically Jehovah’s Witnesses offering religious reading material, or relatives and girlfriends providing rides for someone who is about to be released.
Members of a local grassroots group also frequently gather near the downtown facility, also known as the main jail, speaking on the behalf of people who remain inside, those who will hopefully make it home and others who will never have the chance to.
In May, Decarcerate Sacramento held a candlelight vigil, “For Hope & Healing,” outside the main jail to urge the powers that be to address growing concerns about the welfare of people housed there. Group leaders also called attention to people who have died while in custody at the jail. At the time Liz Blum, the nonprofit’s co-founder, said four people had died in Sacramento County jails this year. At least two more have died since. The numbers could be even higher, as the Sheriff’s Office also has come under fire for failing to disclose several in-custody deaths before they were reported by area families or local news entities.
The number is expected to increase by one. An area man, Tyus Hutton, was admitted to Sutter Medical Center from county jail in late August in critical condition. The extent of the 25-year-old’s injuries and what caused them remains unclear. Hutton’s parents, Ted Gayfield and Talina Hutton, say they were urged to take him off life support in efforts to “cover up” what occurred.
“His body is a crime scene right now,” said Melissa Nold, a civil rights attorney representing the family.
“I deal with police brutality generally that results in serious injury or death and this is what we see when the police have killed somebody – the covering up,” Nold continued. “Why would they not have told the public? We know that there’s been a spate of deaths that have happened here. We’re demanding that there be an outside investigation into what happened.”
The attorney said officials have maintained that they can’t release information because Hutton still is technically incarcerated.
As previously reported by The OBSERVER, a sheriff’s spokesperson, Sgt. Gandhi Amar, said a fight broke out between two inmates that resulted in one of them, Hutton, being hospitalized.
An independent review, Nold said, would help determine the truth of that claim.
“He’s no longer an inmate,” Nold said. “He’s the victim of a crime. The question now is, is [the perpetrator] an inmate or is it a guard?”
“Sacramento County jails are deadly, dehumanizing and perpetuate violence every single day,” said Jael Barnes, a pretrial justice organizer with Decarcerate Sacramento.
‘Killed By Carceral Punishment’
During vigils and other awareness efforts, Barnes calls out the names of those who have died while in custody at the county jail. Among them are several who passed away in 2018 – George Knox, Brandon Smith, Donald Bell, and Marshall Miles who, like George Floyd and Eric Garner, told officers he couldn’t breathe before dying. Deputies were seen on body camera footage warning Miles to “stop acting silly” while transporting him to the jail.
Events such as For Hope & Healing help “put it in people’s faces,” Barnes said.
“They need to know what the hell is going on. It’s the only way we’re going to bring change,” said Barnes, whose husband was incarcerated at the main jail before being transferred to an out-of-state facility.
The names she read off were those of people who died at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove, the main jail or in sheriff’s custody before reaching holding facilities.
“No matter where they were at the time of death, they were all killed by a system of carceral punishment, a system that is willing to treat human life as disposable. We all must keep in mind that the problem is bigger than these two buildings. We as a community must dismantle the system that allows for this to happen in this first place.”
Other speakers included Jasmine McFadden-Stevens, who lost her husband, William Francis Stevens, in 2021.
“He caught COVID,” McFadden-Stevens said. “They had put someone in the cell with him that had COVID. They didn’t give him any medical attention. I called. I tried to fight with these people and by the time they tried to give him medical attention, he had had a heart attack.
“These people were trying to say that he had a heart attack because he wasn’t healthy,” she continued. “My husband was 175 pounds and he was 6-[foot]-1.” There’s no way that he wasn’t healthy. He worked out and everything. I know for a fact that he died because of lack of medical attention.”
Other vigil speakers were formerly incarcerated downtown who alleged deplorable conditions and coverups by staff.
“I witnessed their horrible conditions for three years, praying and hoping that one day, I would have the right platform to be able to share what I saw there with people that can be motivated to make a difference,” Chanzie Cox said.
Cox said she was an inmate worker in a maximum security housing unit for women who were either in trouble for an infraction or were suffering from a mental health crisis.
“Day after day, for months, I would witness women who were completely incoherent. Sitting in rooms that were three or four inches deep with water and urine and feces with toilets overflowing with trash and food and urine and feces that had clogged it,” she recalled.
Tales Of Neglect, Apathy, and Scorn
“There was a woman who began to store her bowel movements in milk containers and began to seal the cracks in the door and they could no longer open the door for her,” Cox continued. “She remained in that room and in that condition for months. Another woman I saw come in weighing probably 160 pounds. Within a matter of months, she deteriorated to about 95 pounds. She sat in the middle of her room on the floor in a bra and underwear and tore apart particles of paper day after day.”
Tasked with cleaning the room after the woman’s passing, Cox said she found a letter the woman had received. The letter, unopened, was shredded to pieces.
“She wasn’t aware enough to know that somebody cared about her and wrote her a letter, which means that there was someone out here who didn’t know what she was going through in there,” Cox said. “Who didn’t know why she didn’t write them back; who didn’t know why she didn’t call them. She had no idea that there was someone out here who cared.”
Another former inmate shared how she witnessed one pregnant woman miscarrying. The fetus, she said, was left on the floor for hours before being picked up and placed in a trash bag. Another woman’s son was murdered by his cellmate; both, she said, were schizophrenic and shouldn’t have been placed together. A white trans man, Jackson Mills, said he experienced poor conditions and poor treatment firsthand while in jail for “a little problem with opiates.” Mills recounted being taunted and humiliated by guards.
“The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with over 2.3 million people behind bars,” he said. “It has had a devastating impact on communities of color, low-income communities and those living in poverty, leading to destabilization and trauma. Transgender individuals are particularly vulnerable in prison and often face physical and sexual violence, medical neglect and harassment. The prison system is not designed to respect the humanity of transgender people and as a result, they’re not receiving the care and support they need and deserve. We need to work towards creating a society that prioritizes rehabilitation and support for marginalized communities instead of punishing and this means investing in resources, education, health care, affordable housing, and implementing restorative justice programs that prioritize community involvement and healing.”
Sacramento County officials say they are in “partial” compliance with a 2020 Mays Consent Decree that requires them to address many of the issues activists consistently call out, specifically reducing jail population, improved medical care and mental health services and staffing inadequacies.
Under These Conditions
“The county has made progress in areas such as decreased jail bed contracts by other agencies, increased pretrial and collaborative courts programs, reentry programs, intensive outpatient programs and a new subacute facility,” reads a statement to The OBSERVER.
“The county acknowledges that more work is needed. Out-of-cell time, booking time and treatment compliance is difficult to nonfeasible within the current facility.”
The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Aug. 8 to move forward with expansion plans, despite opposition from Decarcerate Sacramento.
“Facility inadequacies will be addressed to better treat acute [intensive] and subacute [rehabilitation/recovery] mental health services. New facility or facility renovations would not add incarceration capacity, but would improve conditions for the existing population,” the county’s statement continued.
In May, behavioral health advocate Tamra Lacey shared her experiences in trying to get help for her grandson, who spent two years in the main jail before being released days before the vigil.
“The reason why we’re here is because we know that the criminal justice system is backwards,” Lacey said. “It’s broken and backwards.”
Lacey said her grandson suffers from mental health and emotional issues stemming from trauma as a teen. He later went off his medication and became homeless.
“He ended up somehow with a nonviolent felony attached to whatever he did, which is unclear to me. … He should have been getting care.”
She alleged that medical assistance was given to her grandson only on the morning of his release.
“Maybe they were afraid that my grandson would tell the outside world what’s going on in there,” Lacey said. “The criminal justice system is broken. We already know that people are in here that should not be in here. We know that mental illness and homelessness is being criminalized – even substance use disorders. People want help, but there’s not enough programs. That’s where our money needs to be, not in jail expansion that will never serve those that require care.”
McFadden-Stevens said lives such as her late husband’s should come before money, bureaucracy and codes of silence. Speaking out is healing for her.
“I hold these people accountable,” she said. “I felt that I needed to get my voice out there. That’s fighting to me, [what we’re all] doing at this very moment, fighting for the people that can no longer fight for themselves and this is bigger than us.”
Editor’s note: Over the coming weeks, “Inside Out” will highlight the experiences of formerly incarcerated individuals and their families, look at efforts to improve local jail and prison facilities, and share the perspectives of Black correctional staffers and attorneys who work on change from within and activists who have dedicated their lives to shining a light on the inequities of the criminal justice system.
Over the coming weeks, “Inside Out” will highlight the experiences of formerly incarcerated individuals and their families, look at efforts to improve local jail and prison facilities, and share the perspectives of Black correctional staffers and attorneys who work on change from within and activists who have dedicated their lives to shining a light on the inequities of the criminal justice system.
The post Activists Call Attention To In-Custody Deaths, Jail Conditions appeared first on The Sacramento Observer.