Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]

Nearly two years ago, Maurice Monk, unable to afford his $2,500 bond, sat in a California jail for 34 days. He had missed a court appearance following an argument with a bus driver.

Before he entered Santa Rita jail in Alameda county, Monk had regularly taken prescription medication for high blood pressure, diabetes and schizophrenia. During a previous time at Santa Rita months before his death, he had received his prescriptions as usual.

During this stint in November 2021, however, Monk lay face-down unattended for three days after staff at the jail allegedly failed to give him his prescription medication.

Despite the escalating medical emergency, jail and medical staff allegedly noticed Monk in his bunk surrounded by unopened meals, water, medication, urine and feces and did not act.

In those final days, as the ink from his attire stained the mattress beneath him, Monk experienced what his family called a “slow, torturous death”.

Earlier this month, Monk’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against the Alameda county sheriff’s office, 15 sheriff’s deputy employees and Santa Rita jail workers, and Wellpath Community Care, a for-profit company that provides medical care to dozens of California jails and has been the subject of lawsuits and federal investigations for providing substandard care.

The family’s lawsuit alleged that the father of two’s death at the notorious facility, one of the largest jails in the country, represented an “unconscionable failure of the entire Santa Rita Jail staff, from law enforcement supervisors to medical staff to deputy and sergeant sheriffs”.

Between October and November 2021, Monk’s sister Elvira Monk, who feared that her brother’s health would “rapidly decline” if not given his prescriptions, “repeatedly contacted” Santa Rita jail to tell them about Monk’s medication needs.

They “rejected” her efforts and sent her through a “series of frustrating bureaucratic processes that led to no results”, the family’s lawsuit noted.……

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...renia-medication-death?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other