Louisiana Voice

William Scott Jones was arrested for jaywalking and almost paid for his crime with his life in a jail run by LaSalle Corrections.

LaSalle Corrections is a corporation headquartered in Ruston that operates private prisons in several states and which has experienced considerable problems at a number of its facilities. In Georgia, a whistleblower complaint by a nurse has resulted in a call for a federal investigation into claims that LaSalle was conducting a form of mass sterilizations by performing unauthorized and unwanted HYSTERECTOMIES  on illegal migrant female detainees.

Jones was arrested at 9:30 p.m. on July 17, 2018, by Texarkana, Texas, police and charged with “walking in the roadway,” a Class C misdemeanor normally punishable only by a fine and not incarceration. But he was transported to Bi-State Jail, owned jointly by the Texas-Arkansas border town of Texarkana but operated by LaSalle.

A LAWSUIT filed by Jones claimed that he did not resist arrest nor was there any use of force by police officers in connection with his arrest.

But between 4:54 a.m. and 7 a.m. on July 18, LaSalle records indicate he was “absent – not assigned,” meaning he was, in effect, “lost” to prison officials for those two hours during which time he sustained a “severe physical beating and numerous blunt force injuries” that resulted in multiple facial fractures, a fractured nose and ribs and a “serious injury to his colon, all of which were allowed to go untreated by prison personnel.

There was no indication as to the origin of his injuries – whether he was beaten by jail personnel or other prisoners – nor were any medical personnel summoned to examine him. A licensed vocational nurse was the only health professional to see him but LVNs, the lawsuit said, “are merely gatekeepers without authority to diagnose conditions or direct treatment.”

Jones was repeatedly observed over the next 12 hours lying naked on the floor of his cell but no doctor was informed of his condition or even consulted about appropriate treatment, the petition said.

Jones suffered from diabetes and hypertension but neither his blood sugar nor his blood pressure was ever checked by jail personnel, nor were his vital signs checked following his beating. He was placed in a cell where he went without water or food and where he began experiencing renal failure.

No call was made to 911 until his sister, Melody Jones Dunn, was apprised of his condition at 2:45 p.m. on July 19. Earlier, at 12:20 p.m., when Dunn asked LaSalle employee Tiffany Venable if she had treated her brother, Venable replied, “I’m a supervisor. I ain’t seen no one.” When Dunn asked her to check on her brother, she said she would but she left and never returned.

Jones was transported by ambulance directly from the jail to Wadley Regional Medical Center where he was subsequently hospitalized for almost a month.

At the time of his release notations made by prison employees said he needed “zero further evaluation at this time.”

Instead, the lawsuit said, Jones was “near death when defendants attempted to sidestep their obligation” by simply “releasing” him to his sister. Once released to her, Bi-State and LaSalle no longer were responsible for his well-being and had he died in the hospital, LaSalle would not have been required to file an in-custody death report to the State of Texas.

Also, once released to Dunn, LaSalle was also relieved of a duty to pay for his hospitalization; he was, at that point, her responsibility. Those medical expenses totaled more than $1 million.

Jones was placed on a ventilator and on dialysis.

He was diagnosed with acute renal (kidney) failure, severe dehydration, ischemic colitis caused by blunt force trauma, multiple facial fractures, multiple rib fractures, rhabdomyolysis (muscle loss resulting from the delay in receiving medical treatment), sepsis, pneumonia, blood clots and hyperkalemia (dangerously high potassium resulting from the delay in receiving treatment).

He underwent surgery to determine the extent of bowel damage suffered during the beating and surgeons found that a large portion of his sigmoid and transverse colon was infected and gangrenous, requiring removal of a section of his colon.

He now is required to wear a permanent ostomy bag and has been unable to return to his job as a welder.

Within a week of Jones’s being transferred to Wadley Regional Medical Center, an open records request and evidence preservation letter to Bowie County and LaSalle requesting that all records and surveillance footage from Jones’s incarceration be preserved and produced.

Instead, LaSalle said there was no available footage and that the company had no knowledge of Jones’s beating or any other “incident” involving him. “This makes no sense as (Jones) could not be moved within the jail or exposed to other detainees unless LaSalle correctional staff effectuated and supervised the move,” the lawsuit said.

His lawsuit cites at least five other inmate deaths at LaSalle facilities, three of those at Bi-State already written about by LouisianaVoice – Michael Sabbie, Morgan Angerbauer and Holly Barlow-Austin – in which LaSalle routinely:

• Falsified and/or altered records;
• Failed to provide medical attention to sick or injured prisoners who later died (within a matter of days or even hours in some cases);
• Provided inadequate training for employees;
• Instructed employees during training on how to falsify records;
• “Lost” critical surveillance video (as in the case with Jones), and
• Failed to ensure that employees complied with state law requiring face-to-face checks of prisoners/detainees every 30 minutes.

LaSalle corrections officers had been arrested on occasions following the deaths of other inmates for falsifying documents to make it appear that they conducted the mandated headcounts when, in fact, they did not.

“The failure to secure medical care for plaintiff was motivated by constitutionally impermissible profit-driven reasons,” the petition said. “LaSalle…had a policy, practice and custom of budgeting and spending inadequate amounts on jail medical care to make higher profits under their contract (and) habitually understaffed its facilities.”