Footage shows inmate’s final days

Editor’s note: This story is the second in a series examining the contents of public records related to a 2021 in-custody death at the Lincoln Parish Detention Center that is now the subject of a lawsuit. Some descriptions may be graphic.

By noon on Sept. 24, 2021, Demerious Jones had been lying on the floor of a Lincoln Parish Detention Center solitary confinement cell for about 28 hours.

Lacking the strength to get up, Jones had laboriously dipped a cup into his toilet for water to drink the previous day. But lately he hadn’t even been doing that.

Starting the previous night, Jones had vomited on himself three times and had been lying in the mess for about 15 hours.

Around 12:23 p.m., Jones slowly rolls onto his back, with his foot against the door of the cell and his head under the bed that he’s been too weak to use.

At 12:33 he writhes, feebly, then his arms and legs go limp. He takes several sharp, labored breaths, and falls still. After less than a minute, he appears to take one more gasp of air.

Demerious Jones, a 21-year-old Ruston man, never moved again.

An autopsy confirmed that Jones, a known diabetic, had suffered from diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which contributed to the cardiac event that ended his life.

Jones’ family is taking the detention center to federal court, alleging LPDC staff showed negligence and deliberate indifference in failing to provide Jones with adequate medical care, stemming from insufficient “policies, practices and customs” from the jail’s governing body.

The jail, the Lincoln Parish Detention Center Commission, and two staff nurses named as defendants have all denied the allegations in court filings. Fifteen “John/Jane Doe” deputies are also defendants but have not yet been served because of their unidentified status.

Footage, records reviewed

The Ruston Daily Leader has obtained by public records request surveillance camera footage of the incident.

The Leader has reviewed all available footage of Jones’ final hours, from the time he was brought by wheelchair to a solitary cell on the morning of Sept. 23, 2021, until paramedics loaded him, already reportedly lacking a pulse or breath, onto a gurney to take him to the hospital the following afternoon.

The Leader has also obtained more than 30 pages of records from an investigation into the incident performed by sheriff’s deputies from neighboring parishes, which concluded that no “criminal act” had been done.

This investigation was performed by the Northeast Louisiana Sheriff’s Investigative Unit (NLSIU), formed by seven regional sheriff’s offices some six months before Jones’ death.

These records pick up the story on the morning of Sept. 23, as does the solitary cell footage. The lawsuit’s 29- page narrative starts a day earlier, when it claims Jones began exhibiting symptoms of DKA on Sept. 22.

Here are some of the facts the footage can confirm:

• Jones is wheeled into the solitary cell at 8:01 a.m. on Sept. 23.

When he tries to rise from his wheelchair, Jones falls and is caught by a deputy. Once he’s moved to the cell floor some 15 minutes later, he never rises again, by all appearances lacking the strength to do so. At various times he has to be helped into a sitting position.

• Over the next 28 hours, staff appear to check Jones’ blood sugar levels via finger prick five times. The NLSIU records make mention of two of these checks, the final two on Sept. 24. The lawsuit references all five.

• Aside from these readings, staff occasionally enter and try to talk to Jones, get him a cup of water from the sink a couple times, bring him two trays of food that go untouched on the bed, and later attempt to force-feed him some crackers and what appears to be juice.

• Starting at 8:41 p.m. on Sept. 23, lying facedown on his mattress on the floor, Jones vomits a dark brown liquid on himself three times over the next 11 hours. No one cleans this from Jones or his mattress at any point.

• Jones receives no medication during his time in this cell until about 11:58 a.m. on Sept. 24, some 28 hours after entering. At this time licensed practical nurse Jennifer Plunkett checks his blood sugar, which shows 500 mg/dl, and gives Jones his one and only shot of insulin, roughly half an hour before he stops breathing. The investigation and lawsuit agree on this.

• Jones is found at 12:47 p.m. on Sept. 24, not breathing and with no pulse. Deputies perform CPR until Ruston Fire Department EMT’s arrive and take Jones out of the cell to Northern Louisiana Medical Center, where he is declared dead.

The lawsuit alleges that by failing to adequately treat his condition or transferring him to a higher level of care, the LPDC allowed Jones to die “an excruciating death” that violated his constitutional rights to a safe place of detention and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

The parish sheriff’s office has operated the jail since 2013 through an agreement with the LPDC Commission.

Arriving at LPDC

Jones was booked into the LPDC on Sept. 16, 2021, on three counts of misdemeanor probation violation, according to his arrest report.

Older arrest reports show Jones had prior charges including simple criminal damage to property, theft less than $1,000, battery of a health care professional, unauthorized entry and theft from a motor vehicle.

When investigators arrived on scene shortly after Jones’ death, LPDC staff referenced Jones’ history, according to NLSIU documents.

“I was advised Jones is known at LPDC due to him being a repeat offender and being housed at LPDC on numerous occasions,” Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s deputy and lead investigator Sgt. Michael McLain wrote in his final report. “I was advised Jones is a diabetic who frequently neglects his health.”

Union Parish Sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Mike Bryan, who assisted in the NLSIU investigation, referenced similar conversations.

“We also learned during our investigation that Jones had a history of mental illness and was known to rub feces and urine on his body,” Bryan wrote.

The lawsuit states Jones indicated on his booking medical sheet upon entry that he was diabetic.

The day before solitary

Neither the investigators’ reports nor any of the seven written witness statements obtained by the NLSIU make any reference to the events of Sept. 22, 2021.

The lawsuit claims that morning is when Jones’ symptoms of DKA began. It states the other LPN defendant, Danielle Weaver, checked his blood sugar, which read 259 mg/dl, gave him water to drink, and sent him back to his shared quarters without any medication.

It appears the NLSIU did not interview Weaver.

According to the Mayo Clinic, blood sugar levels above 180-200 mg/dl are considered high, and readings above 240 mg/ dl are considered dangerous.

The detention center’s log of Jones’ blood sugar levels was one of the nearly 200 pages of medical records reviewed in the NLSIU investigation that were not turned over to the Leader as part of its public records request to the 3rd Judicial District Attorney’s office due to privacy protections.

The NLSIU obtained by search warrant 193 pages of Jones’ medical history from NLMC, dating back to more than a year before the incident, as part of its investigation.

The only copy of Jones’ blood sugar logs available to the public is one scanned into the lawsuit filed by Jones’ family.

Sugar levels

Around 9:32 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2021, a deputy appears on footage to check Jones’ blood sugar. The lawsuit’s copy of Jones’ log shows 324 mg/dl was recorded at this time.

Footage shows another check is performed at 3 p.m. that day, but the lawsuit claims staff wrote “R” for “refused to be checked” in Jones’ log.

Around 5:16 p.m. that day another check appears to be performed, but the lawsuit’s copy of Jones’ blood sugar logs contains no entry at all for this time.

None of these three checks were referenced in the NLSIU report.

Around 6 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2021, Plunkett performs another blood sugar check on Jones. She references this in her written witness statement to investigators. She also writes that the night shift told her “he had been refusing to take meds or have blood sugar check last few days also.”

Plunkett’s account and the lawsuit agree that this reading was recorded on Jones’ sheet as 184 mg/dl. The suit calls this figure “suspicious” because Jones hadn’t received any medication to lower his blood sugar since the previous readings.

Finally, the 11:58 a.m. reading shows 500 mg/dl, and Jones receives insulin.

Diabetic ketoacidosis is a diabetes complication resulting from low insulin levels in the body.

According to the Mayo Clinic, DKA symptoms include extreme thirst, vomiting, weakness and fatigue, and confusion — all symptoms Jones showed signs of experiencing, some as early as his first few minutes on camera the day before he died.

Suit continues today

New filings in the lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana show lawyers for the various parties plan to meet today to perform a case management plan as instructed by the judge. This would potentially clear the way for the case to move to the discovery phase.