No Charges Prison For Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Schizophrenic Black Man to Death

[Benton]

(03-21-2017, 07:02 AM)xxlt Wrote: So let's say the first account was deliberately sensationalized in an effort to bring about Helter Skelter (to the delight of racists of all stripes). Let's say this includes deliberately lying about the cause of death. You seem to think that therefore the guards are exonerated. If their conduct precipitated the inmates death, or the heart attack that allegedly caused his death, or whatever else caused it - they aren't off the hook because Joe I Dream of Helter Skelter Journalist lied about it all!

(03-21-2017, 09:10 AM)GMDino Wrote: The heart attack theory is still based on what happened in the shower.  

There are MULTIPLE issues here including officers probably not trained to handle someone with a mental illness.  

(03-21-2017, 10:18 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Well the ME said no scalding, so unless he/she is in on the conspiracy, that seems pretty conclusive at least to that aspect.

The no scalding by the ME is a big part of it.

As far as the guards leaving the guy in the shower and him having a heart attack, I'm not unsympathetic there. It's unfortunate. It's not clear if the shower caused the heart attack, if he was having one over stress (which could be attributed to things irrelevant to the guards and shower), or if the guards were trained to handle medical emergencies. Those things might nudge my decision a bit, but I don't know how much.

People die under the care of prison staff. Sometimes it's because of action or inaction by staff. I just don't see this one as a direct, intended action. Guy had feces on him, guards tried to get him to clean up, guy has a heart attack. If there was no tampering of the water temperature, no maliciousness or different treatment for when it happened to others, I can't fault the guards for wanting to guy to get his own poop off.