‘Spitting up blood,’ Broward detainees with COVID-19 get threats not care, defenders say
Broward County’s top lawyers for indigent men and women in the county jail in Fort Lauderdale have accused the Broward Sheriff’s Office of neglecting the medical needs of detainees infected with the coronavirus — and threatening to use a Taser on those who disrupt the facility to complain about their treatment.
In a letter to Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony Friday night, Public Defender Howard Finkelstein and his top assistant, Gordon Weekes, accused Broward jail administrators of denying medical care and even water to detainees who are confirmed to have COVID-19, the disease caused by exposure to the deadly coronavirus.
“Our clients are advising,” the two wrote, “that while in quarantine, they are not being regularly checked by either medical or detention” staff.
Clients of the Broward Public Defender’s Office told their lawyers that two detainees have become so ill with the disease that they are “spitting up blood.” Though the two tested positive for COVID-19, they have not been moved to the jail infirmary, where they might get better care, the letter said. “We were informed that their requests for water and care were ignored.”
Some detainees became so desperate for medical care that they caused disturbances, the letter said. One blocked a cell window to get attention. Others flooded their cells with toilet water.
“When detention deputies finally entered the unit, they were physically and verbally aggressive and threatening,” the lawyers wrote. “One deputy allegedly pointed a Taser at an inmate’s chest, with full knowledge that the inmate had heart issues; another deputy pointed a Taser at another inmate’s head.”
“Our clients advised that the Tasers were charged and that they could hear the electric current,” the letter added. “Both men are ill and were simply attempting to get the attention of detention personnel for medical care.”
A sheriff’s office spokesman said the department had investigated allegations similar to the ones raised in Finkelstein’s and Weekes’ letter, and “found [them] to be completely without merit.” The new allegations will be investigated as well.
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The spokesman, Sgt. Donald Prichard, said BSO follows Florida health department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for the testing of detainees who may have the coronavirus, and their treatment if they are confirmed positive. “Inmates who test positive are medically isolated, treated and monitored” according to the guidelines, Prichard said in a prepared statement.
As of Saturday, Prichard wrote, 14 Broward detainees had tested positive for COVID-19, representing less than one percent of the jail’s population of 2,860. Ten of those are in custody, two have been released, and one now is testing negative. One died from the disease.
In a news release April 7, BSO declined to name the deceased detainee, citing medical privacy. The department said the detainee was “elderly,” and “suffered from pre-existing medical conditions.” He tested positive for COVID-19. His death is being reviewed by the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office.
Prichard said BSO is following a host of protocols to protect detainees and staff, including the suspension of in-person visitation, the screening of vendors and staff, the use of “best hygiene practices,” and social distancing.
Beset by routine crowding in both dorms and cells — and in aged facilities that make distancing among detainees and staff extremely difficult — correctional institutions could become breeding grounds for the highly contagious infection, advocates for jail detainees and prison inmates fear.
The Florida Department of Corrections reported Saturday that 78 employees and 88 inmates had tested positive for the coronavirus; 38 of those inmates were incarcerated at the privately run prison in Santa Rosa County called Blackwater River Correctional Facility and 38 others were at Tomoka Correctional in Daytona Beach.
Tomoka’s number could grow dramatically because there are 50 inmates whose test results are “pending.”
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons acknowledged last week that 352 inmates and another 189 employees had tested positive for the coronavirus. Ten inmates have died.
The prison bureau said that none of those held at Miami’s Federal Detention Center or the Federal Correctional Institution in South Miami-Dade have tested positive for the virus, but it is unclear how many have been tested.
As of last week, 40 employees of the Miami-Dade County jails, which house 3,000 detainees, had tested positive for COVID-19, and the number had been rising. Most of the detainees were awaiting trial; some are serving sentences of a year or shorter. The county reported only one detainee who had tested positive.
The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice reported Friday that 10 employees and four youths at lockups or commitment programs had confirmed cases of the coronavirus. All four of the youths and two of the employees reportedly were at the Miami Youth Academy, a privately run, 28-bed substance-abuse treatment program in Miami.
Four of the other staff members who tested positive were at the Broward Regional Juvenile Detention Center, DJJ said in a release. Because of the contagion, DJJ is diverting detained youths to the lockup in Miami.
Fear of the virus has caused jail staff to neglect detainees in Broward, Finkelstein and Weekes wrote in their letter Friday. At best, the lawyers wrote, deputies are monitoring the health of detainees only once per shift.
On April 5, the letter said, “detention deputies failed to turn off the camera linked to ongoing hearings and a deputy was overheard angrily yelling obscenities at a COVID-19-positive client who had just been ordered released from the jail.”
Finkelstein and Weekes asked Tony to initiate a comprehensive program to test jail detainees for infection with the disease, given the “uncontroverted medical opinion that jails are incubators for COVID-19 — and given the jail’s inability to impose distancing among detainees and staff.
““Without testing,” they wrote, “COVID-19 will quickly spread throughout the jail, and your staff will become more fearful and less able to do their jobs.”
“Your office, and Broward County, are ultimately responsible for adequate, humane care,” the lawyers wrote. “As this crisis unfolds, you will be judged on how you protect the people in your care, and the persons you entrust with their lives.”