Second infected inmate dies in county jail.
A second inmate who tested positive for coronavirus has died, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. The announcement comes a day after the sheriff’s office announced the first death of an inmate who had contracted the illness.
Spokesman Jason Spencer said that the second inmate died late Wednesday. He had gone to the jail infirmary on Tuesday, complaining of stomach pain, Spencer said. While being transported, he slumped forward, fell out of his wheelchair and hit his head on the way to the ground.
The inmate was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital, Spencer said, but he died Wednesday afternoon. Spencer declined to identify the inmate, citing advice from department attorneys about medical privacy laws.
Spencer said that while the inmate had tested positive for coronavirus, he had not displayed any symptoms, and medical staff do not believe he died from symptoms related to the virus.
The Texas Rangers are investigating both deaths, according to Lt. Craig Cummings, a Department
of Public Safety spokesman. Cummings identified the second inmate as Jerome Nebuwa, 30. Nebuwa was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in May 2017. Court records show he made bond, but was re-arrested multiple times in the ensuing years for violating bond conditions. Prior to his 2017 arrest, he had been
convicted of theft in 2016 and injury to an elderly person in 2013.
According to a source familiar with the investigation, after Nebuwa was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital, doctors found he had a subdural hematoma — a brain bleed — and rushed him into surgery. It’s not clear if Nebuwa suffered the bleed before the fall or because of it. Hospital staff also tested him for COVID-19. The tests showed he’d contracted the illness.
His attorney, Mark Lipkin, could not immediately be reached Thursday. Neither Sheriff Ed Gonzalez nor Judge Lina Hidalgo were available for comment.
Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Brandon Wood said his agency would be investigating, as is routine.
“We are going to have to get information on the deaths,” he said. “Even during pandemic ( jails) are going to have deaths due to underlying conditions or pre-existing medical conditions.”
One advocate for incarcerated inmates said that the case nevertheless raises serious concerns and underscored the need to reduce the number of inmates housed in the jail.
“Non-COVID deaths do not necessarily mean that the deaths aren’t COVID related,” said Krish Gundu, of the Texas Jail Project, recalling one diabetic inmate she’d spoken to several times who’d passed out after his insulin medication was delayed. “If he dies the next time his insulin is delayed, that will be medically listed as a non-Covid death. But we know differently based on the severe staffing issues due to Covid-19."
“Over 75 percent of individuals in our jails are pretrial. We have no right to subject them to a potential death sentence just because they’ve been accused of a crime,” she said. “Our society is morally bankrupt if we casually accept the risk of death by suffocation due to a horrific virus as one more consequence of being accused of a crime.”
Nebuwa’s death marks the fifth to hit the sheriff ’s office this year, and occurred just hours after the death of Arnold Cordess Hall, the 55-year-old inmate who was the first diagnosed with COVID-19. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed Hall’s identity.
Spencer said Hall had arrived at the jail with serious underlying health issues for which he had been hospitalized weeks ago. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 while in the hospital for other issues, Spencer said.
A third inmate also died Wednesday, from an apparent heart attack, Spencer said. That inmate had only recently been booked in the jail, Spencer said.
Court records show Hall arrived at the jail in October after being charged with assaulting and choking a woman named Jaleesa Thompson, who court records identify as a girlfriend but who relatives say was his stepdaughter.
Hall’s court record stretches back to 1981. Prior to his conviction for domestic violence, he had racked up a slew of drug possession charges, and — back in the 1980s — convictions for criminal trespass, a DWI, and a robbery.
His daughter, Ashley Thompson, said she had just discovered Monday that her father had been hospitalized. Hall had suffered from schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder most of his life, she said, and spent decades battling drug addiction.
Because of those problems, her father wasn’t in her life much, she said. She first met him when she was in 8th grade — and didn’t see him again after that until she was 19.
“He wasn’t capable of taking care of me,” she said. Still, she treasured the moments they did share: meals of oxtail slathered in gravy, picnics outside, her father sitting on the porch smelling the wet air after a heavy rain. He loved coffee, and while he admitted to having failed as a father, he wanted to be present in the lives of his grandchildren.
Her mother never spoke ill of Hall, she said.
“She always told me good stuff about him,” she said. “That it wasn’t my dad’s choice. Not that he didn’t want to (be a father), he didn’t know how.”