Indian-origin woman dies in US jail after 15-day hunger strike

It's both.


See I think I'd be looking for reprisals. Somebody should at a minimum

Police and immigration authorities shouldn't let people die on a hunger strike.

Will force feed a cat who has stopped eating. This is a travesty. Poor woman.

Ok just read the comments and article again. Sounds like she slipped through the cracks. So sad.

While I think this is a ridiculous reason for a human being to die, I do not see any reason that authorities should be able to force someone to eat if they have made a choice not to, and have the will to refrain. I have no problem with them waving food in front of her face, leaving it there with her. Or in the case of a child or a person who can be judged mentally incompetent to make their own decisions.

But if a person, with full use of their faculty's, decides they wish to stop eating, I do not see where anyone ought to have the right to force sustenance on them.

they should move them to a hospital long before the point of death.

It is not the responsibility of the jail to make that determination.

Also if this woman's story had been told to the media while it was going on, she never would have died.

So I think part of what I'm trying to say by "they shouldn't allow someone to die", is that prison authorities should not be allowed to keep such events secret from the outside world. To save her life, I believe they would not have had to force feed her. All that would have been necessary would have been for any person to have leaked the story to the news media during the 2 weeks she was not eating.

She apparently stopped eating on Dec. 14 and her public-defender lawyer did not even know she not eating until Dec. 27.
Within 2 days of the lawyer being informed, she was transferred out to a hospital.

The medical care at the jail is provided by a private company (Nashville-based Correct Care Solutions) who had a similar case last year of someone dying of not eating in custody.

See also post number 43 if you like.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-20/news/ct-met-inmate-starves-20120120_1_hunger-strike-food-and-water-lake-county-jail

I was only responding to the blanket "Police and immigration authorities shouldn't let people die on a hunger strike", rather than the specific case. I feel that if a person wishes to make their point via not eating, even to the point of death, and they have the capacity to make that decision and the will to hold to it, that should be their personal right.

However, I absolutely agree that such things, if the person desires, should be made available as public info. And the basic idea of a private company providing medical care is problematic enough, then apply it in a prison setting, and its even less ok by me.

she never should have been there in the first place. If she was summoned for jury duty but was not a citizen, it is not she who belongs in jail. Someone made a mistake by calling her. Their mistake is not her responsibility.

I hope her family sues them as individuals, not the taxpayers who always end up paying for these travesties while the perps get away with not even a slap on the wrist.

My only disagreement was with the idea that authorities should not allow a person to refuse to eat. A person of sound mind who chooses to go on a hunger strike, whether detained or not, is well within my understanding of their rights.

are like.

Especially Racist Police States.

Has basic common sense and compassion went out the window in this country???

That is why my husband, a man who once really loved America, won't even go there to see his dying relatives. The nation is dead.
Obama can do all he can to help, but the rightwing bastards destroyed America, the beautiful and replaced it with this turd. Sorry.

and this woman
should never have been in one

It's a pretty convoluted trail.

She did not die starving herself in jail.

As soon as she showed signs of health issues she was transferred to a medical facility.
She died after 5 days at the medical facility.

My question is why she ignored the summons, even though she wasn't eligible.

Mistakes happen all the time. You get a court summons, never mind 3 of them, you don't ignore them in any country. You show up, along with your paperwork showing you have a work visa, etc. In person, with your paperwork, the officials generally will says oopsie and let you go.

Her friends/co-workers said she showed signs of mental instability.

I wonder why, too. I don't think she deserved to die.

Hunter said Gomes refused food and water from her first day in jail, saying she was on a hunger strike. On Dec. 21, after showing signs of weight loss, Gomes was moved to the jail medical unit, where Correct Care Solutions staff checked her vital signs every four hours.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/relatives-want-answers-in-jail-hunger-strike-death/850ca4f69d9d4a75a8b99516c3b8c02f

for monitoring a woman on hunger strike for a jury summons
absolutely ridiculous

when she would be alive paying taxes and released

It's very interesting because when I search for stories on this company, the first six pages of the search is their PR on the Google. That must cost a lot of money. Makes me wonder what they are trying to push down.

But here is an article from 2005 about privatized prison health care:

As Health Care in Jails Goes Private, 10 Days Can Be a Death Sentence
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/nyregion/27jail.html?pagewanted=print&position

Being from India, there's a good chance her religion required vegetarianism.

"They found some jewelry, an image of the Virgin Mary and photos that recalled her family in India.."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-inmate-starves-20120120,0,717538.story

try reading the article. more to this story than the flaming headline.

not to get into a meta-discussion but this isn't a link farm.

life-threatening medical conditions can change people's personalities.

That's where they messed up.

See links downthread.

I see nothing stating why she was on a hunger strike...very odd article

That's understandable.

Why do you think she was on hunger strike?
The most obvious thing I can think of is she was protesting the fact that she was being held without a good reason.

Maybe you would be more comfortable with this long article in the Chicago Tribune.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-20/news/ct-met-inmate-starves-20120120_1_hunger-strike-food-and-water-lake-county-jail

state the reason she was on the hunger strike, it very well could be she was upset about the arrest
but I it might be something we've not heard yet
please try not to be condescending in your replies

It would have been nicer if I said "We have trouble distinguishing between...". I should have said it like that instead.

Also yeah we don't know why she was on hunger strike. You have a point.

It will remain a mystery.

DELTA in years. She was mentally ill, in a big way (she thought she was in court for tennis lessons?).

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-20/news/ct-met-inmate-starves-20120120_1_hunger-strike-food-and-water-lake-county-jail



http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/01/20/lake-county-sherif-on-defensive-after-womans-death-from-hunger-strike/

They use to do it by voter rolls in my state before the DMV thing. I think that is more reasonable. AT LEAST you get U.S. citizens.

Or am I mixed up here? I thought you had to be a citizen to be on jury duty?

You have to be a citizen to be on jury duty. But they call the jury pool in from driver's licences and then if you're not a citizen they excuse you from duty. In Illinois. I read it in the Chicago Tribune. There is a link to the article in this thread somewhere...

This lady unfortunately read the letter and it said in the letter that citizens can not serve on the jury. But she was still supposed to show up for selection and the be excused.

It seems like she made have made an error by not showing up.

the error or perhaps her misunderstanding and dismissed the charges or something?

thread have felt. I really think that letting her go 7 or 10 days without eating in jail was inexcusable. There is no way in my mind that I can imaging her going a week without eating and someone not noticing.

I guess her visa was expired and my feeling is there was some racism and xenophobia that played into this.

I feel this would probably not have happened if she were a white American-born person in the same situation.

See the links below--a judge would have sorted the jury issue out in a minute, but she apparently went a bit bonkers in the process of service of a civil warrant....

THAT led to her actual arrest, on the charge of 'resisting'....see post # 38 below.

I sent them a letter explaining my situation and never got another one again.

she studied biochemistry and education in college, wrote a math textbook.."

What a waste of a bright mind. What a sad chain of events.

It's a pretty convoluted trail, but it looks like it went something like this--

***She was sent juror summons.

***She ignored it.

***She was served a civil warrant.

***In the process of the service of that warrant, she was belligerent, and resisted the deputies.

***She was arrested for said behavior and booked on the charge of 'resisting.'

***When booked into county jail, she did not list any family.

***ICE had a hold on her, so when she was booked, her name popped.

***She was released into federal custody.

***ICE interviewed her but did not detain her. (She may have appeared in front of a magistrate and been given a date. Her status is unclear.)

***She did not appear on the charge of 'resisting', so a warrant was issued.

***She was rearrested.

***At the jail, she declared her hunger strike when being re-booked. She was moved to the medical unit.

***Her mental competency hearing was moved up, and she was moved to the hospital.

***Her body went unclaimed for a few weeks.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120108/news/701089816/

***At the jail, she declared her hunger strike when being re-booked. She was moved to the medical unit.

The Chicago Tribune says she was arrested for that final time (for failure to appear) on Dec. 14.
And then on Dec. 21, after showing signs of weight loss, Gomes was moved to the jail medical unit.

So that means for 7 days she did not eat, and was not moved to medical.

Then while in the medical unit from Dec 21 to Dec 27, she continued not to eat.
She should have been moved to a hospital.
Also they could have got a court order to feed her intravenously, but did not.
Also her lawyer should have been informed that she was not eating.
On Dec. 27, the jail told the public defender's office about Gomes' refusal to eat — the first her lawyers had heard of the hunger strike.

Two days later on Dec. 29 she was moved to the hospital, on the brink of death.
"The impression we got is that when she got to the hospital, her condition was so grave there was nothing they could do."

She died because of irresponsible behavior first at the regular jail, and then at the jail's medical unit.

Now check this out

Nashville-based Correct Care Solutions has a $2 million annual contract to provide the jail's medical care.

The company has been criticized for its handling of another inmate who stopped eating. Last year, it agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging its nurses failed to properly care for a mentally ill man in Alexandria, Va., who died of dehydration after refusing food and water.

So they have done this before the the privatized prison medical service.
They have let a person die from not eating before.

My theory is this never would have happened to a white person.


http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-20/news/ct-met-inmate-starves-20120120_1_hunger-strike-food-and-water-lake-county-jail

warrant was served on her..

Her 'failure to appear' arrest did not happen because she failed to appear at a JURY, but because she failed to appear in court to answer for the charge of 'resisting.'

When you don't show up at your court date on a criminal charge, the judge issues a bench warrant...that's what her final detention was based on, NOT the jury duty nonsense.

Alot of that stuff I wrote wasn't really directed towards your post. The only part I was nitpicking was this:
"***At the jail, she declared her hunger strike when being re-booked. She was moved to the medical unit."

But importantly, 7 days of not eating went by from the time she was re-booked on Dec. 14 until she was moved to the medical unit on Dec 21. The timeline you had there made it seem like no time went by between those two events.

And then another 6 days of not eating went by in the medical unit before
"**Her mental competency hearing was moved up, and she was moved to the hospital. "

Everything you said was correct except the timeline. I just thought the timeline was not correct because it didn't show that a week went by before they moved her to the medical unit, and then another 6 days before they told anyone in the outside world (her public defender). They basically kept it a secret at the jail that this was going on. And that's why she died because when she did get to a hospital on Dec 29, there was nothing that could be done to save her.

The private company that provides the medical service in the jail has let someone die like this before, last year in Virginia.

The jail authorities are to blame. The private company, Nashville-based Correct Care Solutions, is even more to blame. They let this woman die without telling anyone outside of the prison that this was happening, until after she had not eaten for TWO WEEKS, when she was beyond saving.

jury duty was based on voter registration.

How did an alien end up in the jury selection?

Any reason whey she didn't show?

You might want to READ the article!