Death of Brown County Jail prisoner under investigation; family seeks answers 6 weeks after he died
GREEN BAY – The Brown County Sheriff's Office says it is investigating the death of a 22-year-old man who was found unresponsive in a Brown County Jail cell in October.
Abdullahi Abdi-Mohammed, 22, of Green Bay died Oct. 29. According to a news release issued by the sheriff's office Friday evening, Abdi-Mohammed "was discovered unresponsive in his single-occupancy jail cell" around 1:05 a.m. and taken to Aurora BayCare Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Online jail records say Abdi-Mohammed was released from the Brown County Jail at 1:27 a.m. that day. A death certificate, provided to the Press-Gazette by the Minnesota chapter of the advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations, states he died at the hospital 16 minutes later.
The news release from the sheriff's office came two days after CAIR-Minnesota announced Abdi-Mohammed's family was looking for answers in his death, which was nearly six weeks ago.
Neither online jail records nor Abdi-Mohammed's records with the Department of Corrections show any indication of his death.
Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-Minnesota, said Abdi-Mohammed's family shared what they knew of his death with the organization in an attempt to get answers.
"To this point, we have nothing. No real answers of exactly what happened," Hussein said. "The only thing we've heard is that (there was) potentially some sort of a medical situation."
Abdi-Mohammed's father told CAIR-Minnesota the family was not aware of any medical issues that could have led to Abdi-Mohammed's death.
A Wednesday news release from CAIR-Minnesota called for "officials in Brown County and the state of Wisconsin to conduct a prompt and comprehensive investigation" into Abdi-Mohammed's death.
"This situation raises serious concerns about the treatment of Muslim incarcerees and the protection of their rights," Hussein said in a statement.
Abdi-Mohammed was booked into Brown County Jail at 5:20 p.m. Oct. 27 on a probation violation. According to court records, he was sentenced Oct. 2 to two years of probation for misdemeanor convictions of disorderly conduct and possessing drug paraphernalia.
Separate investigations by the sheriff's office and the Brown County Medical Examiner's Office are underway. The sheriff's office said the death is not believed to be foul play or suicide, and no further information will be provided until those investigations are completed.
The medical examiner's office did not share information about the death and referred a reporter to the Brown County Corporation Counsel.
Kelli Arseneau can be reached at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Family says Green Bay man died 6 weeks ago in Brown County Jail
