Lawsuit: Mecklenburg jail didn’t help inmate despite 2 suicide tries. He killed himself hours later.
Before he was arrested two years ago, Jerome Thompson told his family that he would either kill himself or be killed by police.
A new federal lawsuit claims that he was right on both accounts.
On the night of July 11, 2018, the 52-year-old Charlotte man threw himself off the second floor at the Mecklenburg County Jail, fracturing his skull.
However, the lawsuit filed by Thompson’s estate claims the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office contributed to his death by not taking steps to keep him safe.
Both agencies, the complaint alleges, failed to arrange adequate care for Thompson or to place him under protective watch despite Thompson’s two earlier suicide attempts that day while in police custody.
A medical screening at the jail that afternoon also revealed that Thompson suffered from severe depression, the lawsuit claims.
“Defendants breached that duty of care owed Mr. Thompson,” the lawsuit says. “... They failed to place Mr. Thompson on suicide watch when it was clear that he emotionally unstable. The records further indicate that defendants failed to observe Mr. Thompson in the prescribed manner which allowed him to walk around freely and jump to his death.”
The complaint names the city of Charlotte, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings and Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden as defendants, as well as a list of police officers, deputies, jail staff and jail nurses whose official duties intersected with the last hours of Thompson’s life.
City Attorney Patrick Baker did not respond to Observer emails seeking comment Monday.
Spokespersons for the police department and the sheriff’s office said their agencies would not comment on a pending legal matter.
According to the complaint, both of Thompson’s suicide attempts on July 11, 2018, were caught on surveillance cameras at CMPD’s Steele Creek station, where Thompson had been booked on charges of first-degree attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
As police finished the paperwork for the arrest, Thompson tried to stab himself in an artery with the cap of a pen, the lawsuit says.
Later, in an interview room, Thompson intentionally and repeatedly fell backwards from his chair to land on his head, causing injuries that required hospital treatment, according to the suit.
However, the complaint alleges, at least three CMPD officers handling Thompson’s case did not tell the hospital he had tried to hurt or kill himself.
The jail’s booking personnel — several of whom had been told of the attempted suicides, according the lawsuit — conducted a medical screening of Thompson that showed he suffered from “extreme depression” for which he took multiple medications.
Nonetheless, he was assigned to a second-floor jail pod with other inmates instead of a place in the jail where he could be more closely watched, the lawsuit states.
Some 6 1/2 hours after he entered the jail, Thompson jumped from the second-floor inmate unit. The lawsuit claims that jailers and the other defendants “deliberately and recklessly” withheld the medical care that could have saved his life.
Thompson’s was one of four inmate deaths at the jail in 2018 during a two-month period.
Now, his estate’s lawsuit surfaces as a state investigation opens into the weekend death of a Charlotte man inside the Mecklenburg Jail, inmate Michael Daniel Mangan. The 51-year-old was found in his cell early Sunday morning and pronounced dead an hour later.
In a statement, McFadden said his office was “devastated” by the loss.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Help is available for people in crisis or those looking to help someone in crisis. Call 1-800-273-8255.
