Kept completely naked in a cell, and perhaps even locked up in a cold room, an inmate died of cold in an Alabama prison. The terrible story was reported today by the American media, after the man’s mother filed a complaint in federal court.
Anthony Mitchell, 33, died on January 26 after 14 days in detention. Taken to hospital by police, he had a rectal body temperature of 22 degrees. According to the medical report it is not clear why the temperature was so low, but the death is clearly due to hypothermia.
Authorities told the family that Mitchell’s temperature dropped suddenly during a routine exam and he was taken to hospital. But his mother didn’t believe it. “The only way Tony’s temperature could have dropped to 22 degrees in such a short period of time is that he was placed in a restraint chair in the prison kitchen walk-in freezer or similarly frozen environment, and left there for hours,” reads the complaint, where it stresses that the family was unable to see video images of where the man was held the night before his death.
Mitchell was arrested on January 12 after a cousin reported his worrying mental and physical state to authorities. Anthony, who had recently lost his father and had a history of drug addiction, had appeared emaciated and had given an incoherent account of alleged portals present inside the house to access the afterlife.
But the “wellness check”, i.e. the check to determine if he needed help or treatment, had ended with Mitchell threatening the policemen with a gun and being arrested on charges of attempted murder.
The mother filed a complaint after a prison employee showed her the video images of the detention, which told a very different story from the official one.
Mitchell always appears completely naked, locked up in a concrete cell, where there is only a drainage pit. He apparently had no clothes for suicide surveillance protocol.
According to the complaint, in the first three days of his detention he had been shot with an electric gun, losing a dental prosthesis which was never returned to him. Because of this, Mitchell could no longer eat solid food. Karen Kelly, the employee who showed the videos to the prisoner’s mother, filed a lawsuit against the sheriff who in the meantime fired her.