Lawsuit filed in death of inmate
Bexar County, University Health System and Sheriff Javier Salazar are being sued in the death of a mentally ill inmate that occurred two weeks after he was jailed for criminal trespass.
Jack Ule, 63, died April 18 while at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center. He had been charged with a class B misdemeanor of criminal trespass with bond set at $500.
Attorney Leslie Sachanowicz, who is representing Ule's family, said the wrong death lawsuit filed in federal court aims to “give a voice to the voiceless.”
Sachanowicz said Ule's case is similar to the case of Janice Dotson-Stephens, a woman who died on Dec. 14 after spending months in jail on a $300 bond.
She also suffered from mental illness, a combination of severe mood disorder with possible schizophrenic side affects.
Dotson-Stephens' family, also represented by Sachanowicz, filed a wrongful death lawsuit last year.
“Unfortunately, these people are sometimes trapped in their own minds, and they can't give informed consent or informed refusal,” Sachanowicz said.
Sachanowicz said 13 people have died in the jail compared to nine people who have been executed on Texas' death row this year.
“These are people which are pretrial detainees; they have not even been sentenced,” he said. “Bexar County has become a death house for the mentally ill people in San Antonio.”
In response to the lawsuit, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office issued a statement saying “While we cannot comment specifically on this case due to ongoing litigation, a list of inmates incarcerated at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center who are charged with misde
meanors and with bonds under $2,500 are reviewed on a weekly basis in an effort to reduce jail population in accordance with respective judges assigned to those cases.”
Additionally, we are currently in the testing phase of an automated system which electronically notifies court appointed attorneys via email, whose clients are incarcerated for misdemeanor charges on the 15th day of incarceration, and once again on the 30th day of incarceration, to ensure that indigent inmates are receiving a fair opportunity for a change in bond conditions.”
Monica Ramos, Bexar County spokeswoman, said the county judge had no comment on the lawsuit. Efforts to reach UHS were unsuccessful.
His brother Joseph “Joe” Ule, 69, said Jack Ule’s mental state began deteriorating significantly in the first few months of the year. When they last spoke in December 2018, Ule seemed like he was doing OK.
After graduating from Ohio State with degrees in agronomy and business, Jack Ule lived with his mother. When she died in 2015, Joe Ule was forced to sell the home and his brother became homeless.
He was making his way to El Paso when he ended up in San Antonio. His address is listed in several reports as Haven for Hope.
Ule’s medical history was documented in several visits to University Hospital and in reports from Bexar County Hospital District Police.
According to the lawsuit, Ule’s first admission was on Feb. 7, when he was diagnosed with chronic mental illness.
“They knew in a database that he already was a mental health patient,” Sachanowicz said.
Over the next few visits, Ule would have several encounters with police while he was in the waiting room. In a March 19 police report, Ule was locked in an emergency center sub-level lobby bathroom and refused to leave University Hospital.
Police issued a criminal trespass warning for him and escorted Ule off the property without incident.
On April 3, Ule was admitted with chest pains and shortness of breath. Physicians found that Ule had an enlarged heart with evidence of an increased risk of heart failure.
On April 4, shortly after midnight, a police report states that Ule was watching TV in an unoccupied waiting area without an appointment. He was detained and jailed for criminal trespass.
What upset Ule’s brother the most about his time spent in jail was that authorities said they did not know how to contact him.
“I said, ‘Excuse me? Three hours after he died, you called me and my son,’ ” Joseph Ule said. “If somebody would have called me, I would have driven down there and brought him back here.”