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| In this March 12, 2014 photo, Alma Murdough and her daughter Cheryl Warner hold a photo of Murdough's son, at her home in the Queens borough of New York. Jerome Murdough, a mentally ill, homeless former Marine arrested for sleeping in the roof landing of a New York City public housing project during one of the coldest recorded winters in city history, died last month in a Rikers Island jail cell that multiple city officials say was at least 100 degrees when his body was discovered. Murdough, 56, was found dead in his cell in a mental observation unit in the early hours of Feb. 15, after excessive heat, believed to be caused by an equipment malfunction, redirected it’s flow to his upper-level cell, the officials said. |
NEW YORK (AP)
-- Jerome Murdough was just looking for a warm place to sleep on a
chilly night last month when he curled up in an enclosed stairwell on
the roof of a Harlem public housing project where he was arrested for
trespassing.
A week later, the mentally ill
homeless man was found dead in a Rikers Island jail cell that four city
officials say had overheated to at least 100 degrees, apparently because
of malfunctioning equipment.
The officials
told The Associated Press that the 56-year-old former Marine was on
anti-psychotic and anti-seizure medication, which may have made him more
vulnerable to heat. He also apparently did not open a small vent in his
cell, as other inmates did, to let in cool air.
"He
basically baked to death," said one of the officials, who all spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss
specifics of the case.
The medical examiner's
office said an autopsy was inconclusive and that more tests were needed
to determine Murdough's exact cause of death. But the officials, all
with detailed knowledge of the case, say initial indications from the
autopsy and investigation point to extreme dehydration or heat stroke.
Advocates
for mentally ill inmates in New York say the death represents the
failure of the city's justice system on almost every level: by arresting
Murdough instead of finding him help, by setting bail at a prohibitive
$2,500 and by not supervising him closely in what is supposed to be a
special observation unit for inmates with mental illnesses.
In
a statement issued Wednesday, Department of Correction Acting
Commissioner Mark Cranston called Murdough's death "unfortunate" and
reiterated that an internal investigation will look into the entire
episode, "including issues of staff performance and the adequacy of
procedures."
Cranston also acknowledged that
the temperature in Murdough's cell was "unusually high" and said that
action has been taken to fix mechanical problems to ensure safe
temperatures, "particularly in areas housing vulnerable inmates."
The
department said it had addressed two contributing factors an outside
consultant identified as causing the excess heat. It also said
temperature checks immediately after the death revealed that several
cells nearby were over 80 degrees.
Murdough's
75-year-old mother, Alma Murdough, said she did not learn of her son's
death until the AP contacted her last week, nearly a month after he
died. His public defender was told of the death three days after the
inmate was found, the DOC said.
"He was a very
lovely, caring guy," said Murdough, adding that her son had bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia and that she had not seen him in about three
years.
"He had beer problems. Drinking beer.
That was his downfall. Other than that, he was a very nice guy. He'd
give you the shirt off his back."
Family
members say Murdough grew up in Queens and joined the Marine Corps right
out of high school, doing at least one stint in Okinawa, Japan.
When
he returned from the service, his family said, both his mental illness
and thirst for alcohol became more pronounced, and he would often
disappear for months at a time, finding warmth in hospitals, shelters
and the streets.
"When he wanted to venture
off, we let him, we allowed him to come and go," recalled his sister,
Cheryl Warner. "He always came back."
Murdough's
criminal record included 11 misdemeanor convictions for trespassing,
drinking in public and minor drug charges, said Ivan Vogel, a public
defender who represented him at his arraignment on the trespassing
charge.
According to the city officials,
Murdough was locked alone into his 6-by-10 cinderblock cell at about
10:30 p.m. on Feb. 14, a week after his arrest. Because he was in the
mental-observation unit, he was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes
as part of suicide watch, they said. But Murdough was not discovered
until four hours later, at about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 15. He was slumped
over in his bed and already dead.
When
Murdough was found and his cell opened, his internal body temperature
and the temperature in the cell were at least 100 degrees. Those
temperatures could have been higher before he was discovered because the
cell had been closed for several hours, the officials said.
Dr.
Susi Vassallo, an associate professor at New York University School of
Medicine and a national expert on heat-related deaths who monitors heat
conditions at Rikers Island, said psychotropic medications can impair
the body's ability to cool itself by sweating, making it retain more
heat than it should.
Exposure to intense heat for a couple of hours by someone on such medications could be fatal, she said.
Last year, three Rikers inmates died from non-natural causes, according to Department of Correction statistics.
Of
the 12,000 inmates who make up the nation's second-largest jail system,
about 40 percent are mentally ill, and a third of them suffer from
serious mental problems the department said. Advocates and others have
long argued that correction officers are not sufficiently trained to
deal with mentally ill inmates whose needs are complex.
Catherine
Abate, a member of the New York City Board of Correction, an agency
charged with overseeing the city's jails, suggested at a recent public
meeting that Murdough should have been referred to psychiatric care, not
to Rikers Island.
Jennifer J. Parish, an
attorney at the New York-based Urban Justice Center's Mental Health
Project, said Murdough appeared to be a man in need of care.
"So
Mr. Murdough violated the trespass law. So he suffered the consequences
by going to jail," Parish said. "But the jail system committed more
serious harm to him. And the question is, `Will they ever be held
responsible?'"
Wanda Mehala, another of Murdough's sisters, said the family wants an explanation.
"We
want justice for what was done," she said. "He wasn't just some old
homeless person on the street. He was loved. He had a life. He had a
family. He had feelings."
