Markwhan Kitcher-Tucker hanged himself in a San Francisco jail while awaiting trial in 2021, an incident his lawyers said stemmed from negligence on the part of jail authorities.
Four years later, the Board of Supervisors voted today to grant $2,880,000 to his parents to settle their wrongful-death lawsuit against the city.
This is among the largest wrongful death law enforcement settlements since 2010, according to an analysis by Mission Local.
Kitcher-Tucker’s parents, Latoya Starks and Sanvada Kitcher, sued the city in December 2021, alleging that jail staff showed “deliberate indifference” to the “serious medical and mental health needs” of their schizophrenic son. He was 28 when he died.
According to the lawsuit, jail behavioral health service providers failed to create a treatment plan, institute suicide precautions or accommodate his disabilities. Kitcher-Tucker had been arrested, his lawyers wrote, for a series of thefts “arising out of his mental illness.”
In jail, the lawsuit continued, Kitcher-Tucker would yell, bang on his cell door, and speak incoherently. He was transferred to a segregated cell described as “essentially solitary confinement.” After being returned to jail, he watched a neighboring inmate attempt suicide.
Afterward, Kitcher-Tucker told an employee, “I feel like I can relate, though. I have nothing to live for. Being in here isn’t good. I put my mattress on the floor because sometimes I want to die.”
He killed himself less than four months later.
This is tragic and wrong all the way around. Persons accused of criminal offenses are innocent unless/until found guilty.
No innocent person should be forced to sit in jail while awaiting trial, unless they pose an immediate threat of violence. Especially when they have mental health issues likely to be exacerbated by that environment, as was evidently the case here.
Now politicians on the Board of Supervisors are making San Francisco taxpayers foot the bill for a nearly $3 million payout, rather than holding the jail employees who failed to provide appropriate mental health care responsible.
Pretrial detention needs to be ended, along with “qualified immunity”. Individual government employees, not the general public, need to pay the penalty for their own negligence and misconduct.
Sounds nice. PDs would just stretch cases on indefinitely with the deep repertoire of delay tactics while clients would be out free to commit all sorts of release violations and further crimes.
“Persons accused of criminal offenses are innocent unless/until found guilty. ”
No, people are guilty or innocent of the accusations in reality, but only after a conviction are they publicly held as guilty. That doesn’t remove the cause or intention in detaining them pretrial where the facts convince a judge of the necessity based on the available circumstances, which you are trying to pretend are always the same and always wrong until a flawed court process involving monied attorneys and political goals takes place to decree some unquestionable status of guilt or innocence. That’s not how the real world works sweetheart. Glossing over it all because you have deep feels is less useful than a pure opine. Have your opine, stop pretending it’s legally founded, and you’ll do just fine regardless of whether or not you decide to waste money on a run for Governor again.
What kind of advanced society puts human beings in iron cages?
The kind with criminals. All societies. Some use mainly cinderblocks, etc. What advanced society are you even referring to really? What defines advancement, and who could you even point to as a real example?
All advanced societies do. The mentally ill who lack direct and competent care absolutely need to be institutionalized.
They will never hold a job, pay taxes, and will only end up being a danger to you or themselves if left alone.
Deal with it.
I wonder if this saves us money over the long term.
It might. Trips to the ER aren’t free. Neither are nights in custody.
Wonder what the statistical value of a life is for someone who’s committed enough crimes to be detained pretrial in San Francisco. It’s a pretty exclusive air of folks with that many run ins with the law.