Sunday: Video sought in Tulsa Jail inmate's death
BY KEVIN CANFIELD World Staff Writer
Saturday, January 05, 2013
The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office was warned by state and federal agencies about deficiencies at the Tulsa Jail’s medical unit as far back as 2007, according to court records filed in connection with a lawsuit regarding a 2009 inmate death.
A federal magistrate has scheduled a Jan. 15 hearing to determine whether a 2011 Tulsa Jail video that allegedly shows an inmate’s being denied food and water for the last 51 hours of his life should be released to the public.
Daniel Smolen, representing the estate of Elliott Earl Williams, 37, who was pronounced dead in his cell at 11:21 a.m. Oct. 27, 2011, has said he has never seen “a more horrific, egregious violation of a human being’s civil rights in the United States as I have in what is displayed in the Elliott Williams video.”
Williams, of Tulsa, was arrested in Owasso about midnight on Oct. 21, 2011, after police responded to a call that someone was breaking things at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott.
When police arrived at the hotel, they found Williams in the lobby with his father, Earl Williams.
“It was readily apparent that the suspect was having a mental breakdown,” Owasso Police Officer Jack Wells wrote in his arrest report. “The suspect was rambling on about God, eating dirt.”
Smolen — along with attorneys Louis Bullock and Gregory Denney — claims that after Williams was booked into the Tulsa Jail on Oct. 22 he went days without food and water before his death.
They have sued Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz; the jail’s health-care provider, Correctional Health Care Management; and others, claiming that Williams’ civil rights were violated.
Read more in Sunday's World.
Associated Images:
Elliott Williams Courtesy
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