Employees charged in connection with death and assaults at Alabama jail

MONTGOMERY Ala AP Six more employees at an Alabama jail have been indicted in connection with the death of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held for two weeks in a concrete cell while several of them have also been accused in the assaults of other inmates The indictment unsealed Monday is the latest round of charges related to the death of Tony Mitchell after his incarceration at the Walker County Jail A total of people have been indicted or plead guilty The latest indictment charges the six employees including the jail captain and supervisor with conspiracy alleging they sought to unlawfully punish detainees in the jail for the detainees perceived misbehavior Five of the six are charged with depriving Mitchell of his rights including depriving him of humane conditions shelter sanitation and anatomical care The offense resulted in bodily injury to and the death of Individual prosecutors wrote in the indictment which referred to Mitchell only as Individual The indictment also details a string of other assaults at the jail and three of the officers have been charged with deprivation of rights for alleged assaults of other inmates One of the employees is accused of slamming a handcuffed person s head into a cell floor He and another employee are accused of beating an inmate who was recaptured after an escape Another is accused of punching a restrained inmate Two of the employees are charged with obstruction of justice Prosecutors noted they offered an inmate food from outside the jail to act as an enforcer in his dorm and assault an -year-old inmate Prosecutors stated they later submitted a letter to the court that falsely claimed the enforcer had been a model inmate who established zero signs of aggression Defense attorneys listed in court records did not at once return emails seeking comment sent Monday afternoon Mitchell s death on Jan put a spotlight on conditions and assertions of abuse at the jail in Jasper Alabama Mitchell died after being brought from the jail to a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of degrees degrees Celsius He had been taken into custody two weeks earlier on Jan after a relative appealed leadership to do a welfare check on him because he appeared to be having a mental breakdown The Walker County sheriff s office stated that Mitchell was arrested after firing a shot at deputies and running into the woods Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that for much of his two-week detention Mitchell was held in a concrete cell that serves as the jail s drunk tank with no blanket mattress or clothing and was routinely left naked on the bare concrete floor He was routinely covered in feces and was not provided with regular opportunities to shower or use a toilet prosecutors wrote Source