Capital punishment for sleeping in a stairwell?
by digby
Murdough “basically baked to death” in the overheated cell, a city official earlier told the AP, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t permitted to discuss the case. An initial Department of Correction investigation disclosed in an unrelated federal lawsuit in April found Murdough’s internal body temperature was 103 degrees and the cell was 101 degrees.
The medical examiner hasn’t officially determined the cause and manner of death, but an investigator said he likely died of hyperthermia, according to the initial corrections investigation. Murdough suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to his family. He was on psychotropic drugs that experts say can make people more sensitive to heat.
The officer assigned to tour the mental observation unit where Murdough was housed abandoned her post 20 minutes before he was discovered, according to the investigation. The AP reported in May that jail guard had been disciplined four years earlier for doing the same thing.
Murdough was arrested a week before his death on a misdemeanor trespassing charge for sleeping in the stairwell of a public housing building. He was sent to Rikers after being unable to make a $2,500 bail.
The problem is that we are treating the mentally ill in this country as criminals.
If this species makes it beyond the next century or so, I’m going to guess it will categorize our time as bararic as we categorize the middle ages. Except we know better.
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