Cara Tabachnick
BY Cara Tabachnick
Kyam Livingston begged for help. After seven hours of lying on the floor of a jail cell, the 38-year-old mother of two died, her calls unheeded by the correction officers providing security for the approximately 15 female inmates at Brooklyn “central booking” jail this past summer, according to witnesses and court documents.
Witnesses told the family that she had died in the cell among fetid conditions before she was taken to Brooklyn Hospital Health Center on 21 July 2013 where Livingston was pronounced dead at 6.58am, according to police reports. A witness, registered nurse Aleah Holland, told The Daily News, that police at Central Booking ignored her complaints of stomach pains and diarrhoea. She said that when she and other inmates banged on the bars calling for help, officers told them Livingston was an alcoholic.
No one knows what happened, and no one wants to say. The NYPD told the family that she died of a seizure, but her family says she never suffered from seizures. This October the family sued the city, the NYPD, and the Department of Corrections in an effort to force systemic change and “responsibility” for her death.
Livingston was one of the few hundred jail deaths that happen across the country. In 2011, (the latest available numbers) 885 inmates died in the custody of local jails, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported. Notice I said jails. These are different from prisons. Prisons are for people who have been convicted of a crime and sentenced. There are roughly 3,000 jails nationwide and each facility is set up to process people that have been arrested before they are arraigned or go to trial.
Some will serve a misdemeanour sentence (of under a year). The majority will be let go because the charges against them won’t stick as they move through the legal system. Others will remain in jails while waiting to go to trial too poor to make bail – yet to be convicted of anything. Regardless, they will be treated as criminals.
As a result, there is great hesitancy on the part of security to address sick complaints as seriously as they should be, especially in jail where the churn of people is endless, with most disappearing quickly. For those with health issues, this suspension of belief can prove fatal.
Across the nation the news is chilling: in Albany, New York, Irene Bamenga, 29, had pleaded with jail staff to deliver her medicine before dying from a life-threatening heart condition. She was at the jail for a week, where she died awaiting deportation to France.
In Irving, Texas Sarah Tibbet, 37, died on a jail cell floor after not receiving insulin for her diabetes while she was in custody. Her boyfriend, who was in the cell next to her, told the news that he had screamed at the guards at the facility for over 10 minutes until they took action. In Cook County, Illinois, the death of Eugene Gruber from pneumonia, which resulted from paraplegia following spine injuries suffered in an altercation with a corrections officer in the Lake County Jail was ruled a homicide. Over the next 24 hours, the Chicago Tribune reported, Gruber complained that he couldn’t move his legs and was carried around, sometimes with his legs dragging, as guards tried to take his mug shot.
For anyone the process is scary, humiliating and contentious. But, in particular, the relationship between the inmates and the officers are especially fraught with distrust, especially when it comes to health issues. Sixty-six percent of the time, charges are dropped, and people go through a humiliating process only to go home. But regardless of guilt or innocence, the people in the criminal justice system are still people: mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and their cries for help should not go ignored. THE GUARDIAN
BY Cara Tabachnick
Kyam Livingston begged for help. After seven hours of lying on the floor of a jail cell, the 38-year-old mother of two died, her calls unheeded by the correction officers providing security for the approximately 15 female inmates at Brooklyn “central booking” jail this past summer, according to witnesses and court documents.
Witnesses told the family that she had died in the cell among fetid conditions before she was taken to Brooklyn Hospital Health Center on 21 July 2013 where Livingston was pronounced dead at 6.58am, according to police reports. A witness, registered nurse Aleah Holland, told The Daily News, that police at Central Booking ignored her complaints of stomach pains and diarrhoea. She said that when she and other inmates banged on the bars calling for help, officers told them Livingston was an alcoholic.
No one knows what happened, and no one wants to say. The NYPD told the family that she died of a seizure, but her family says she never suffered from seizures. This October the family sued the city, the NYPD, and the Department of Corrections in an effort to force systemic change and “responsibility” for her death.
Livingston was one of the few hundred jail deaths that happen across the country. In 2011, (the latest available numbers) 885 inmates died in the custody of local jails, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported. Notice I said jails. These are different from prisons. Prisons are for people who have been convicted of a crime and sentenced. There are roughly 3,000 jails nationwide and each facility is set up to process people that have been arrested before they are arraigned or go to trial.
Some will serve a misdemeanour sentence (of under a year). The majority will be let go because the charges against them won’t stick as they move through the legal system. Others will remain in jails while waiting to go to trial too poor to make bail – yet to be convicted of anything. Regardless, they will be treated as criminals.
As a result, there is great hesitancy on the part of security to address sick complaints as seriously as they should be, especially in jail where the churn of people is endless, with most disappearing quickly. For those with health issues, this suspension of belief can prove fatal.
Across the nation the news is chilling: in Albany, New York, Irene Bamenga, 29, had pleaded with jail staff to deliver her medicine before dying from a life-threatening heart condition. She was at the jail for a week, where she died awaiting deportation to France.
In Irving, Texas Sarah Tibbet, 37, died on a jail cell floor after not receiving insulin for her diabetes while she was in custody. Her boyfriend, who was in the cell next to her, told the news that he had screamed at the guards at the facility for over 10 minutes until they took action. In Cook County, Illinois, the death of Eugene Gruber from pneumonia, which resulted from paraplegia following spine injuries suffered in an altercation with a corrections officer in the Lake County Jail was ruled a homicide. Over the next 24 hours, the Chicago Tribune reported, Gruber complained that he couldn’t move his legs and was carried around, sometimes with his legs dragging, as guards tried to take his mug shot.
For anyone the process is scary, humiliating and contentious. But, in particular, the relationship between the inmates and the officers are especially fraught with distrust, especially when it comes to health issues. Sixty-six percent of the time, charges are dropped, and people go through a humiliating process only to go home. But regardless of guilt or innocence, the people in the criminal justice system are still people: mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and their cries for help should not go ignored. THE GUARDIAN
