Lawsuit: Ignored inmate had baby

A homeless inmate gave birth last year in Alameda County’s jail while she lay alone in a cold, dirty concrete solitary confinement cell after guards ignored her screams for hours, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The mother was locked into the isolation cell after medical staff accused her of exaggerating complaints of pain and cramping, and deputies decided to punish her for the exaggeration, the suit says.

In isolating her, the staff at Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin ignored the fact that she was eight months into a high-risk pregnancy and was in such pain that she could only crawl on her hands and knees, according to the suit

filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The cell in which the mother, Candace Steel, was placed on July 23, 2017, “had not been cleaned,” had only metal furniture and no blankets or towels, the suit said, and she writhed in agony for “many hours” before the baby girl came.

“She was extremely traumatized, and she still cries when she talks about it,” said Yolanda Huang, the lawyer who filed the suit for Steel. “To go through labor alone in a concrete cell like that, and know you’ve been completely abandoned, is awful.”

Huang said that the metal door to Steel’s cell had one small sliding window on it, and that deputies closed it to muffle the noise while Steel screamed in labor agony.

“They didn’t open that sliding slot window again until they heard the baby,” Huang said. “It was awful.”

The suit seeks damages from Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, several of his employees and California Forensic Medical Group, which was contracted to give medical care to prisoners at the jail.

Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said Monday that it was “unfortunate that the birth was in an isolation cell — nobody wanted that, and we’re not denying that it happened.”

He said Steel wound up in the cell at least partly because “her labor was misdiagnosed,” but that the incident outlined in the suit is “obviously not something that commonly happens in our jail system.

“We would have much rather that she had given birth at a hospital,” Kelly said. “But that having been said, mother and baby were both given immediate health care once the deputies learned what was going on. And they were very compassionate. At the end of the day, we’re just happy the mom and the baby are healthy.”

Huang said Steel had been homeless with a 2-year-old daughter in the Tri-Valley area around Dublin when she was arrested in late July 2017 on misdemeanors including child endangerment for having her daughter with her. The misdemeanors did not result in convictions, Huang said.

And though the Sheriff’s Office said the birth went well after guards realized what was happening and helped her with afterbirth procedures, the suit contends there were complications.

“Plaintiff’s baby was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck,” the suit said. “Out of pure instinct, Plaintiff put her fingers into the baby’s mouth to open its airways so that the baby could start breathing. After the baby’s birth, Plaintiff had no ... means to wash or clean the baby or herself.”

That Steel had a problematic pregnancy should have been taken much more seriously, Huang said.

Just before she was jailed, Steel told medical staff at ValleyCare Hospital that she had smoked methamphetamine in her fifth month of pregnancy, smoked tobacco daily, and had smoked marijuana and drunk alcohol into her eighth month, the suit said. She also said she had experienced seizures in her previous pregnancy, had no prenatal care for her current one, and did not know her due date.

“She was down on her luck back then,” Huang said. Today, she said, Steel, who is in her 30s, is living in Nevada, is working in the restaurant industry and has both her children with her, she said.

“But what happened in the jail ... this is what they do to you when you’re poor,” Huang said. “It’s horrible.”