Alabama inmate Tony Mitchell met a bitter cold end, apparently frozen to death in a jail freezer by deputies. The FBI is picking up the case because the family also sued the sheriff’s office.
Inmate restrained in a freezer
According to reports, when guards at Walker County jail wanted 33-year-old Anthony Mitchell to “chill out,” they ended up imposing a death sentence.
They placed the inmate “in a restraint chair in the jail kitchen’s walk-in freezer or similar frigid enforcement and left [him] there for hours,” the lawsuit alleges. Possibly, “as punishment for deputies who had ‘had a time with Tony.‘” When they came back to get him, video shows he was frozen stiff.
County Attorney Edward R. Jackson issued a statement for the sheriff in response, explaining authorities “immediately contacted the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate and independently determine the facts” surrounding the demise of the inmate.
Anthony “Tony” Mitchell of Walker County, AL was arrested Jan 13 after an apparent mental health crisis. He died 2 weeks later in police custody after being strapped to a chair and left in a jail freezer for hours. Here's video of officers transferring Mitchell to the hospital. pic.twitter.com/E2dciYOFDl
— 🇺🇸🇺🇦 Kal-El of Krypton 🏳️🌈🌊 (@MadeOnKrypton) February 14, 2023
They add that Walker County Sheriff’s Office “is fully cooperating with the investigation.” Attorney General Steve Marshall confirmed that the Federal Bureau of Instigation is now in on it too, after they got word of the family’s lawsuit.
Video shows Mitchell “being transported from the county jail to Walker Baptist Medical Center.” Everyone wants to know why they didn’t call an ambulance. The doctors want to know what “treatment Mitchell received while incarcerated.”
They were stumped by what they saw and there are only so many theories for what could have happened. Not only was the inmate “pulseless,” he was “cold to the touch.” Really cold. The thermometer raised eyebrows higher than the mercury.
Whistleblower fired in retaliation
Coincidentally, the Walker County jail supervisor who exposed “a video of an inmate’s last hours alive inside the jail” was immediately fired. She claims it was “retaliation” and it sure looks like it. The inmate passed away on January 26. Mitchell family attorney’s called Tony’s death “one of the most appalling cases of jail abuse the country has seen.”
There were other concerning cases in the same facility and they’ll be looked into as well. “There have been other jail deaths due to neglect/denial of medical care and allegations of abuse.”
The video leaked by the angry supervisor indicates the inmate “languished naked and dying of hypothermia in the early morning hours of January 26 and his chances for survival trickled away” while “numerous corrections officers and medical staff wandered over to his open cell door to spectate and be entertained by his condition.”
“This is one of the most appalling cases of jail abuse the country has seen,” the 37-page federal lawsuit begins. “On the night of January 25 to January 26, 2023, Anthony Don Mitchell (“Tony”) froze to death while incarcerated at the Walker County Jail.” https://t.co/rhck2C5LKa pic.twitter.com/UFELx78d5a
— Lee Hedgepeth (@lee_hedgepeth) February 13, 2023
The jury won’t like that movie one bit. They’re likely to add a whole bunch of zeros to the final settlement, just to discourage things like that from happening again elsewhere.
The ER doctor who was first to get a look at Mr. Mitchell was shocked by what the inmate had been through, even though he wasn’t real sure what it had been.
His report notes, “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” but obviously, “hypothermia was the ultimate cause of his death.” If he had been held in sub-zero much longer, he would have come out solid.
