I think people need to read this article and understand that this man was literally slowly tortured to death in the King County Jail for nothing more than an alleged minor drug possession charge.
From the Seattle Times article:
"Two medical experts who reviewed Iszley's Jail Health Services file say caregivers overlooked or ignored symptoms that the 48-year-old inmate was in serious medical trouble the day before he died, including signs of acute dehydration and pain so severe that it left him sweating and writhing on his cell floor.
In the ombudsman's report, the experts found that the jail's medical staff failed to act on Iszley's escalating symptoms after he was booked into jail on July 16 for a minor drug-possession charge. He was treated with Motrin — a drug one of the experts said was inappropriate in a case of severe abdominal pain — and given oral fluids that he could not hold down as his heart rate soared above 130 beats per minute and his blood pressure dropped.
An autopsy found nearly two-thirds of a gallon of fecal matter had leaked into his abdomen through the ulcer, causing an infection that killed him.
"From an outside observer perspective is [sic] appears to me that they let this man suffer and did nothing," wrote Dr. Lori Kohler, the director of the Correctional Medicine Consultation Network and a professor of clinical family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
"It is unlikely that they would tolerate this kind of agony in a friend or family member," Kohler wrote of Iszley's three days of documented suffering in the jail. "His misery is quite obvious."
Iszley's mother, Lois Clayton of Seattle, called the ombudsman's findings shocking. She said she didn't realize how long her son had been denied treatment.
"I think it shows they just didn't pay any attention to him," she said this morning. "They just let him suffer.""
People either don't seem to believe me, (or maybe they support detainee torture), that the King County Jail intentionally lets detainees suffer and withholds treatment intentionally. In my case I know they let me suffer intentionally, in others I think it's also possible that they let them suffer or misdiagnose because they feel they can't be bothered or don't really listen to the symptoms being presented.
I survived that place by the grace of god I think, as they ignored my symptoms of brain damage when I told them I had lost consciousness, convulsed, when my blood pressure kept dropping, when I couldn't eat for weeks, and when I was so pale the other detainees were sure I was going to die... But this person didn't, he was sentenced to death by torture.
Where are all those Seattle citizens that packed the King County Council chamber to protest the treatment of animals in the King County Shelters? Apparently they can't be bothered to care about humans being mistreated in their jail and many even seem to like the idea of pre-trial detainees being tortured in their name... as became apparent when I tried to distribute flyers about jail issues at an ACLU Guantanamo protest and was screamed at by protesters who were, oddly, supposedly protesting against torture.
Where's the press? The blogs? The local "progressive" independent weekly papers and blogs ignored this story just as they ignored it when the DOJ investigation ripped into the King County Jail last year for the deadly civil rights violations that were going on in there. Seems they also love torture so long as it's not happening in a third-world country or in Cuba.
Irregardless, this poor man was killed, in a very slow and agonizing fashion, by the King County Jail. I might be the only one in Seattle who cares, but I hope this poor man's soul has found peace and I have only the deepest sympathy for his family and those who knew him. I am profoundly sorry that this man suffered so for no good reason... lord knows I've been trying to stop the needless suffering and deaths occurring in that hellish place and catching hell for it.
Updated 04/16/07-16:22
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