ST. LOUIS (AP) - A medical examiner has found that an inmate who was too ill to stand for two days before he became the fifth in-custody death last year at St. Louis County Justice Center had suffered a stroke.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that St. Louis County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Case said in an interview that a hemorrhage in the left cerebellum of 31-year-old Jo’von Mitchell had caused “tremendous pressure” in the brain, the result of heart conditions caused by high blood pressure present over a long time.
Quick treatment of stroke symptoms is often considered essential to increasing chances of a person’s survival and reducing complications, particularly in the 80% of strokes that are caused by blood clots.
But an internal report that the paper obtained previously said it took him hours to get medical care, even after he began slurring words. The report said jailers and nurses believed Mitchell had a bad headache or virus.
Mitchell had been in custody since October 2016 on charges that included assault on a law enforcement officer.
Mitchell’s death is the first to occur after a series of changes and the appointment of a new jail director in the wake of four other in-custody deaths.
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