Inmate who died in jail had history of drug abuse
David Black showed up out of the blue at a family get-together about a year ago.
He played some pool, introduced his girlfriend — and looked too skinny and too pale, said his brother, Daniel Black.
It was the last time Daniel saw his brother alive.
On Monday, he received a call: His brother died early that morning in the Allegheny County Jail. Although he’d been in the jail for more than 11 hours, he never made it out of intake.
“I was shocked,” Daniel said. “Especially when they said he died in the jail. I thought maybe he’d been in there for a while, you know? But then they said they’d just brought him in.”
Authorities haven’t said how David Black died, only when. The 53-year-old from McKees Rocks entered the jail at 6:45 p.m. on Sunday and was pronounced dead at 6:05 a.m. Monday.
Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs said Mr. Black appeared to be “in medical distress” before his death.
The Allegheny County police are investigating; there has been no ruling yet from the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office on cause and manner of death. County officials would not release details or answer numerous questions about the death citing the fact that the investigation was ongoing,
Mr. Black was arrested by Robinson police after an officer saw a driver complete what looked like a drug deal at a motel on Steubenville Pike around 4 p.m. Sunday. The officer pulled the car over and found Mr. Black behind the wheel with crack cocaine in his pocket along with a crack pipe. He was also wanted on a warrant, according to court records.
The drug use comes as no surprise to Daniel. His brother had been in and out of jail for years
and had been using illegal drugs since he was a senior in high school, Daniel said. Court records show David has been arrested a halfdozen times during the last two years, mostly for drugrelated offenses.
That’s one of the reasons the brothers hadn’t spoken in a year, Daniel said.
“I love him, he is my brother,” Daniel said. “But I didn’t want him around my kids like that.”
He knew his brother was in bad shape, but he’s baffled that no one could help him before he died in the jail.
“If they noticed he was in medical distress, they should have sent him to a hospital,” Daniel said.
The intake department, where David Black died, is where new arrivals go through the process of entering the jail.
During that process, inmates are medically cleared for entry, fingerprinted and photographed. Eventually inmates are arraigned, and then can be assigned more permanent housing or released on bond, depending on the case.
All inmates go through a medical screen when they enter the jail, said Capt. David Hungerman, who works in the intake department. Two nurses are assigned to work intake during the day shift and one is scheduled for the department in the evenings and overnight, Ms. Downs said.
Capt. Hungerman would not comment on the circumstances surrounding David Black’s death but said jail staff typically try to get inmates through the intake process within eight to 10 hours.
The process can be delayed for several reasons, he said. The jail staff must wait for officers to file an arrestee’s paperwork before the new inmate can be processed, he said. That can take hours.
And the results of David’s autopsy could take weeks, Daniel said. For now, he and the rest of the family are left waiting for answers, said Sharon Black, David’s sisterin-law. She remembers David as a fun-loving, outgoing guy who enjoyed spending time with his nieces and nephews.
“He got into the situation he was in,” she said, “and he never got help.”