ST. LOUIS — A man in custody at the city’s downtown jail died early Thursday, officials said.
A Department of Public Safety spokesman said the man began having a medical emergency in the jail’s infirmary sometime shortly after 1 a.m. Other inmates observed the emergency and alerted a correctional officer, who in turn called for medical assistance at 1:20 a.m. Emergency medical services responded at 1:28 a.m. and took the man to a local hospital four minutes later.
The man was pronounced deceased two hours later.
Officials did not provide any additional details about the man. Monte Chambers, the spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said an investigation was ongoing, the Medical Examiner’s Office had been contacted, and the police department’s Force Investigation Unit was assisting in the investigation.
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The Force Investigation Unit is best-known for investigating officer-involved shootings in the city, but Chambers said Thursday’s incident did not involve use of deadly force.
The incident marked the latest bad news out of the downtown jail in the recent weeks.
Another inmate, Carlton Bernard, 32, died last Sunday shortly after being put in an ambulance en route to the hospital, his attorney said.
Last Tuesday, a group of inmates took a guard hostage for several hours before police SWAT officers intervened.
And that was only the latest problem at the City Justice Center, on South Tucker Boulevard, where crime suspects are held before trial.
The facility has struggled with multiple security breaches due to broken locks and understaffing in recent years, including a February 2021 riot where more than 100 inmates commandeered the fourth floor, set fires, broke windows and hurled furniture and flaming debris onto the street below.
In 2022, the jail saw at least six people die in custody — two from drug overdoses, three from preexisting medical conditions and one by suicide.
And this year, civil rights advocates and the jail’s civilian oversight board have increasingly complained that the city is wrongfully obstructing investigations into the problems.
On Monday, the president of the city’s NAACP chapter, Adolphus Pruitt, and the Rev. Linden Bowie, president of Missouri’s Missionary Baptist State Convention, railed against jail operations and urged city leaders to increase transparency.
“The City Justice Center has a judicial history attesting to years of abuse, mistreatment and violence,†they said in a statement. “Effective CJC oversight is of paramount importance to ensure that individuals are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their legal status or alleged crimes.â€
Taylor Tiamoyo Harris of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.