Lawsuit Filed Against A Minnesota Jail For Allegedly Failing To Provide Proper Care, Which Resulted In An Inmate’s Death

According to a complaint filed on Tuesday, Minnesota jail employees disregarded the cries of a 41-year-old man who passed away from a ruptured colon after pleading for days to be brought to a hospital and experiencing such excruciating agony that he had to crawl on the floor of his cell.

Lucas Bellamy was treated as though “he was subhuman, like he was an animal,” according to the lawsuit that was brought in the Minneapolis U.S. District Court against Hennepin County and Hennepin Healthcare.

The jail’s operator, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, sent the family a written message of sympathy but chose not to comment on the lawsuit because it had only recently been filed and was still pending. In a statement, Hennepin Healthcare stated that it would not comment on ongoing legal matters.

Everything began on July 18, 2022, when Lucas Bellamy was taken into custody on suspicion of stealing a car and having brass knuckles in his possession, according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

He informed personnel during jail intake that he had consumed a bag of drugs, and the lawsuit stated that he was then sent to Hennepin County Medical Center or HCMC. He was kept under observation and sent back to prison with the directive to visit the emergency room again if any alarming symptoms appeared.

Lucas’s contacts with nurses and jail guards were captured on camera, which Jeff Storms, the Bellamy family’s attorney, shared the press media. The final video showed him standing just behind his cell door, his lower body moving slowly until it stopped and he passed away.

In a briefing, his father, Louis Bellamy, a director who established St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre, stated that he has witnessed tragedy on stage. He did say that he “could not have built anything more callous, more disrespectful to … humanity, human existence than what I witnessed on that tape.”

Bellamy’s death, according to the lawsuit, was one of 15 at the facility since 2015, with eight of those deaths occurring in the last two years. It claims that requirements for monitoring the welfare of prisoners have not been met, and Bellamy is one example of this.

The lawyer, Storms, stated that he is requesting that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison conduct an inquiry.

“Lucas could have been saved with proper treatment,” the suit said. “Instead, he endured a real-life nightmare and died.”

SOURCE: MURPHYS LAW