Inmate's dehydration death came after litany of errors, policy violations, ex-2nd-in-command says
A litany of egregious errors and policy violations preceded the dehydration death of Milwaukee County Jail inmate Terrill Thomas, the jail’s former second-in-command testified Wednesday.
Former deputy inspector Kevin Nyklewicz said multiple front-line officers and their supervisors botched the oversight of Thomas, who was found dead on his jail cell floor in April 2016. For seven straight days, jail staff deprived Thomas of water and a mattress, and they failed to get him medical help or voice concern to their superiors about Thomas’ condition.
“Could it have been avoided? Absolutely, in my opinion. Should it have been avoided? Yes,” Nyklewicz said.
The testimony came on the third day of an inquest into the death of Thomas, who suffered from bipolar disorder. Prosecutors sought the inquest, which allows them to publicly question witnesses under oath before they decide whether to file criminal charges in connection with a death. A jury hears the testimony and issues an advisory verdict on whether there’s probable cause to charge anybody.
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Nyklewicz’s statements are the strongest yet from the upper echelons of Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office leadership.
Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. hasn’t commented publicly on his agency’s handling of Thomas’ incarceration. He has complained publicly that the media fails to sufficiently highlight Thomas’ poor physical health and the charges that landed him in jail, neither of which contributed to his death.
Nyklewicz, who has since retired from the sheriff’s office, said jail staff failed on numerous fronts. A lieutenant violated policy by ordering the shutoff of Thomas’ water and failing to document it. Officers never contacted a psychiatric social worker after Thomas stripped off his clothes and shouted incoherently for days. Shift supervisors never intervened after daily required checks of inmates like Thomas in solitary confinement.
“I can’t believe that someone would walk through there and not see or not question anything,” Nyklewicz said.
Nyklewicz’s testimony followed questioning of other witnesses about another problem in the case: the failure to preserve surveillance video.
Jail staff only recovered video showing the second half of Thomas’ weeklong stint on the solitary confinement wing. The missing portion would have shown who shut off Thomas’ water — though other jail staff members have identified who they believe gave the order and who carried it out.
Robert Stelter, an investigator for the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office, testified Wednesday that the missing portion of the video was overwritten because jail staff didn’t download it quickly enough. The jail only retains video surveillance for about 60 days, give or take several days.
“It’s not that somebody intentionally erased it. It just overwrites after a certain period of time,” Stelter testified.
The jail’s top commander, Nancy Evans, testified Tuesday that she didn’t believe the tapes would be necessary for a homicide inquiry because investigators initially thought Thomas died of natural causes. She admitted the tapes should have been downloaded for the sheriff’s internal affairs investigators.
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Stelter testified that a Milwaukee Police Department lieutenant, Eric Donaldson, asked for the tapes early in the department's investigation, never received them and didn’t immediately follow up. Stelter said he and Donaldson made another request for the video in late June or early July. They eventually received the partial tapes in mid-July, 85 days after Thomas arrived at his jail cell.
Stelter provided no additional details of Donaldson's initial request. Donaldson hasn’t yet testified at the inquest.
Nyklewicz testified he also ramped up his review of Thomas’ death in late June after receiving an order from Inspector Edward Bailey, who was third-in-command of the Sheriff’s Office. That’s around the time the Journal Sentinel began questioning jail administrators about inmate accounts that Thomas died due to water deprivation.
“He said, ‘You will go back to the jail and interview everyone about this issue with the water,’ ” Nyklewicz testified.
The inquest is expected to finish late this week or early next week. Prosecutors have not said who might be subject to criminal charges. They have said the potential crime relevant to the inquest is abuse of a prisoner, a low-level felony.