LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The family of a man who died in a southern Indiana jail three years ago has been awarded $1 million.
Jerod Draper died inside the Harrison County jail in October 2018, and his family filed a lawsuit not long after his death. Last month, the jail settled the suit with the family for $1 million.
Draper was arrested after a police chase.
According to the lawsuit, he swallowed drugs and had medical issues at the jail when deputies strapped him to a chair and tased him.
"They treated him like he was disposable, and they didn’t care," Larry Wilder, the family’s attorney, said in an interview with WDRB in November 2018, soon after the suit was filed. "And that’s not the way the law provides you have to be treated."
According to a news release from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department dated the day after Draper’s death, Draper was arrested around 4 a.m. Oct. 4 after a police pursuit. Draper was pronounced dead just after 8 p.m. that same day. During those 16 hours, the lawsuit alleges the jail’s staff failed to properly fulfill their duties in caring for Draper.
"Getting arrested and having a drug problem does not mean you give up your rights to be treated humane," Wilder said.
While taking Draper into custody, deputies noticed he had bloody cuts on his wrists. According to the statement from the sheriff’s department, he said he was suicidal, he refused medical treatment, but he was taken to the Harrison County Hospital for evaluation. The hospital did not admit Draper and did not perform any tests, Wilder said.
When Draper was brought back to jail, he became agitated and violent.
"They responded by stripping him of his clothing, placing him in a restraint chair on suicide watch," Wilder said.
Draper eventually calmed down and was released from the chair, according to the sheriff department’s statement. But then a couple hours later, he started spinning in circles and hitting himself. That's when "they put him back in the restraint chair," Wilder said. "And in order to achieve that, they began to Tase him with a Taser."
The jail’s staff called EMS, which arrived at 1:27 p.m. Once the restraints were loosened to move him to a gurney, Draper was unresponsive. He was taken to Harrison County Hospital for treatment then airlifted to Norton’s Brownsboro Hospital in Louisville, where he was pronounced dead.
According to the autopsy report, Draper died from acute poisoning from a methamphetamine overdose. The coroner found a clear plastic bag in his stomach, “which presumably contained methamphetamine that was swallowed by Jerod,” according to the lawsuit.
Wilder said this is not the first time the Harrison County Jail has faced accusations of mistreating inmates. He said the lawsuit makes very clear that Draper died as a result of the jail’s failure to treat him in a humane manner. He hopes more training and policy changes will come as a result.
"Money never ever results in the feeling that justice has been served," said attorney Larry Wilder, who represented Draper's family in the suit. "No one can bring a person back."
The sheriff's office says it now has body scanners at the jail to keep inmates from bringing drugs into the facility.
Copyright 2021 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
