An Oklahoma County jail inmate called twice for help for his dying cellmate. Nobody came
The first call about inmate Parker Stephens came into the Oklahoma County jail's ops center at 8:08 p.m. on Feb. 2, 2021.
"I think my cellie's been through a seizure right now," his cellmate, Ismael Ruiz, said, according to a recording.
"Got it," the operator said.
Three minutes later, the cellmate called again from the emergency phone in their cell.
"My cellie, man, he's, he's not OK," Ruiz said.
"I've called. They know. They know the ... I told, I already told the rover," the operator responded.
"What the hell, man, this s--- is not OK," Ruiz said.
The rover, detention officer Jacob Hamilton, had been notified after the first call but didn't check, an internal investigation later found. Stephens, 21, was found dead in his bunk the next morning, a ripped bedsheet wrapped tightly around his neck 11 times. It was a suicide, a medical examiner determined.
Those recordings are now key evidence in the newest lawsuit against Oklahoma County commissioners and the trust that operates the jail.
The civil rights lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of the inmate's estate in Oklahoma City federal court.
The county "had abundant opportunity to increase funding, supervision and training which would allow it to properly staff and address the systemic deficiencies that have plagued the Jail for well over 10 years," attorney Daniel Smolen alleged.
The Tulsa attorney has used identical language in other lawsuits.
In one case, county commissioners responded: "During the pandemic the criticism of the jail, especially staffing complaints, failed to appreciate the impact of worldwide events on staffing at every prison and jail facility."
Stephens had been in jail for almost a year after being accused of stabbing a stranger without provocation and manufacturing methamphetamine in an Oklahoma City apartment.
He underwent a mental health examination the month before his death, The Oklahoman reported previously. He told a state forensic psychologist he had attempted suicide four times before his arrest, including by drinking brake fluid. He also said he had been on suicide watch at the jail in July 2020.
"He should be closely monitored by detention center personnel," the psychologist wrote in a report.
The lawsuit alleges Stephens was mostly ignored by the facility's staff "despite this clear warning and directive." It also alleges Hamilton was the only officer working the entire second floor of the jail on the evening of Feb. 2, 2021.
"This was wholly inadequate staffing to reasonably ensure inmate safety," the lawsuit alleges.
Inmates on that floor were supposed to be checked on every hour.
The jail administrator at the time said Stephens was not in a mental health pod because it had been over six months since he "had made an action or statement that would warrant that kind of placement.”
“We strive to give detainees a sense of normalcy, and with voluntary medication compliance and counseling as ordered, they can feel like they are not stigmatized out of the gate,” the administrator, Greg Williams, told an online news site, The Frontier, in February 2021.
Williams resigned as jail administrator in December after being criticized for the high inmate death toll. Almost 40 inmates have died since the trust took over operations on July 1, 2020.
Hamilton, who also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, denied wrongdoing Friday.
"I don't remember much about that night," he told The Oklahoman.
Hamilton resigned hours after the death after being told he had falsified sight check logs "several times" and lied to investigators, according to internal jail records obtained by The Oklahoman.
He had claimed that Stephens was fine when he pulled the other inmate from the cell to go to court at 4 a.m., according to the internal records. He also claimed Stephens had "grabbed his breakfast tray" at 5 a.m.
The orderly who delivered the tray reported he had suggested the officer check the cell because Stephens hadn't moved, the records show. "He just said, 'Oh, he's alright,'" the orderly told investigators.
The medical examiner reported Stephens had been dead for hours.
Investigators concluded from a review of surveillance recordings that Hamilton had not checked on Stephens after being notified of the emergency call, the records show.
He had last been in the cell pod at 7:24 p.m. and did not return until 10 p.m., almost two hours after the emergency calls, according to the records. He walked out at 10:20 p.m. He could not have checked on Stephens then because the lights were off in that cell and he didn't have a flashlight.
In a 2022 interview, Hamilton told an investigator, "We were just really busy that night. And I just didn't do the sight checks like I said I did. It was wrong and I know it was wrong."
He said he was overwhelmed by the "chaos" at the jail that night, according to a recording. He was 20 years old at the time.
One of the pending lawsuits against commissioners and the trust involves a similar incident.
During the beating, an inmate from a nearby cell on the jail's medical floor called over and over on his wall phone for help. No one ever answered.
Agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation later determined the calls went to the medical clinic, where the phone had been muted.
The lawsuits could result in jury verdicts or settlements totaling millions of dollars. Property taxes in Oklahoma County would go up to pay them off.
Oklahoma County paid a $1.1 million settlement last year over the 2017 death of an inmate who was shot by pepper balls at close range as many as 16 times.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: New lawsuit over Oklahoma County jail involves troubling 2021 suicide
