SC Jail Probed After Man “Eaten Alive” by Rats

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 328 points –
SC Jail Probed After Man “Eaten Alive” by Rats
theroot.com

The Department of Justice found themselves another jail to probe following the gruesome death of a Black inmate. The victim’s family says his body was found riddled with rat bites in his solitary confinement cell.

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How in the hell are there no criminal charges in this case? He died of dehydration in a jail that also denied him access to medical care. The coroner ruled it a homicide. People need to be charged in this death.

They just started the investigation. Charges come later.

I get that the DoJ just opened their probe, but the death happened in Feb 2022 and there's no indication the sheriff opened any kind of investigation into the homicide.

Because the state and county don't give a shit about black people. If anything, they're on board with it. That's why the feds are stepping in with a civil rights case now.

I know that's the actual reason, I just want it to be said. I doubt the feds are going to actually charge anyone. Their civil rights probes usually just tell local officials to do better. There's never accountability.

Why are we jailing someone for traffic offenses in the first place? Unless this was something like vehicular homicide or DUI, he shouldn't have been incarcerated at all.

Couldn't post bail

https://www.wistv.com/2022/08/03/watch-family-inmate-that-died-custody-alvin-s-glenn-launches-lawsuit/

she attempted to bail her son out and had the money to do it but was told her there was a hold on her son’s release

Not for lack of trying.

That said,

Butler had been in custody since Jan. 31 and was facing traffic charges that included reckless driving, failure to stop for a blue light and driving with a suspended license.

Yeah I'm not surprised that they'd arrest him. He'd already had his license suspended for something, and continued to drive, apparently in a reckless manner. Apparently this guy was dangerous on the road, and didn't respect the non-arrest consequence, so jail it is. Still, that doesn't mean he deserves a shitty jail cell, let alone solitary confinement or death, especially not a torturous death by dehydration and rat bites.

The blue light charge was probably fake. I got hit with running a police barricade once for not seeing a knocked over traffic cone. Went to traffic court and fought it. They eventually made it a 20 dollar failure to yield no points.

We keep thinking the law is this scared thing and it is really just a question of cost and benefit. The city decided fighting me wasn't worth the amount extracted.

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Jesus fucking Christ I don't want to be on this planet anymore.

What stop are you getting off at? I'll join you.

Eaten... alive? Fuuuuuuuuck!!

I can't believe something that was used as Medieval torture is just something that's happening casually in a modern day prison. Makes me sick to be a part of this planet sometimes.

I only read the article after reading some of the comments. That's really fucked up. Guy was in for some traffic occurrences, i wonder how you get treated, if you were to get in like for smoking weed.

It is known as the "Death Trap", after all.

How can it get to be known by that name, without having it ring some kind of alarming signal for authorities to look into this? That must have being going on for the longest time in this particular prison.

That is not a sentence I really ever expected to read outside a post apocalyptic novel...