Trigger warning: explicit description of violent death, mental illness
A jailed man’s death has just been ruled a homicide in Alabama, USA, after he was subjected to freezing temperatures, sparking allegations of deliberate abuse and neglect. The case has further unveiled a doctor’s note with gruesome details about the inmate, as well as unaddressed mental illness.
Inmate Anthony Don Mitchell, also nicknamed “Tony,” who had “serious mental and psychiatric needs,” was reportedly put in a concrete tank known as “the freezer” before he died from hypothermia.
Mitchell reportedly passed away on January 26, 2023, at the age of 33, while in custody at the Walker County Sheriff‘s Department after spending two weeks “incarcerated under horrendous conditions” at the Walker County Jail, Jasper, Alabama.
According to The Blaze, Mitchell’s mother, Margaret Mitchell, claimed in a 53-page lawsuit that officers at the jail deliberately exposed her son to freezing temperatures for more than 24 hours straight.
A man’s death was ruled a homicide after he was subjected to freezing temperatures, sparking allegations of abuse and neglect
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The heartbroken mother additionally alleged in the suit, filed last February, that law enforcement had forbidden her son from receiving medication, medical treatment, water, and access to the toilet.
On February 29, Walker County Coroner Joey Vick confirmed the authenticity of a death certificate posted on a Facebook group called Justice for Tony Mitchell.
“Yes, this is the death [certification] that we signed,” Vick told AL.com.
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The documents, which were filed on February 1, 2023, listed Mitchell’s manner of death as a homicide and listed the causes as hypothermia and sepsis “resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”
Jon Goldfarb, the attorney representing Mitchell’s family, said in the ongoing lawsuit against the Walker County Sheriff’s Department: “Tony’s death was wrongful, the result of horrific, malicious abuse and mountains of deliberate indifference.”
The suit further indicated that the defendants included Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith, jail administrator Justin White, a nurse practitioner, an investigator, and more than a dozen jail correctional officers.
A defendant is a person or entity against whom a legal action is brought, typically in a civil lawsuit or criminal proceeding.
At the time of his death, Mitchell was being held at the jail after being arrested following “a mental breakdown”
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Randy McNeill, representing the sheriff and the correctional officers in the case, told USA Today that he could not comment on the case “because of the ongoing investigation.”
The lawsuit also reportedly included that a doctor wrote in emergency room notes that Mitchell was “unresponsive apneic and pulseless and cold to the touch” when he arrived for treatment.
The doctor’s note, as per the lawsuit, read: “I am not sure what circumstances the patient was held in incarceration, but it is difficult to understand a rectal temperature of 72° F 22° centigrade while someone is incarcerated in jail.”
“The cause of his hypothermia is not clear.
“It is possible he had an underlying medical condition resulting in hypothermia.
“I do not know if he could have been exposed to a cold environment.”
The death certificate labeled Mitchell’s death as a homicide due to hypothermia and sepsis
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A response to the 2023 lawsuit filed by jail nurses disputed Mitchell’s family’s claims that he was locked in a freezer.
Attorneys for the sheriff’s office also said Mitchell was never placed in a freezer and asked that the allegation be removed from the lawsuit, as per AL.com.
The document stated: “He was not held in a freezer.”
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“In fact, the only times that he left the booking area was to attend his 72-hour hearing and to be transported to the hospital.”
At the time of his death, Mitchell was being held at the jail after being arrested during a welfare check when shots were fired at deputies as they were called to Mitchell’s home for what family members believed to be “a mental breakdown,” USA Today reported.
A Facebook group called Justice for Tony Mitchell published Mitchell’s death certificate, which was later verified by the coroner
Image credits: ABC 33/40
We are outside the Walker County Sheriff’s Office as a crowd gathers after the Tony Mitchell’s death was ruled a homicide. @abc3340 https://t.co/U5OMiGLYgD pic.twitter.com/GVatgNsCZI
— Megan Scarano ABC 33/40 (@MScaranoNews) March 1, 2024
On the day he was taken to jail, a cousin called 911 for help because Mitchell was in serious need of psychiatric help, “spouting delusions about portals to heaven and portals to hell.”
A written statement released from the sheriff’s office on Facebook reportedly stated that when deputies arrived at the home, Mitchell brandished a handgun, fired one shot toward officers, and fled into nearby woods.
Mitchell was reportedly found in the woods with his face covered in a black substance. Upon arrival at the jail, a correctional officer claimed Mitchell had spray-painted his face black “because he was planning to enter a portal to hell located inside his house.”
“This was a human being who deserved better,” a reader commented
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