ST. PAUL, Minn. (KFGO) – The Minnesota Dept. of Corrections has reinstated Class III status to the Otter Tail County Jail in Fergus Falls.
Sheriff Barry Fitzgibbons says he was notified of the reinstatement. It allows the jail to keep inmates longer than 72 hours. The department lowered the jail’s classification after a prisoner was deprived of food and water for more than two days for smearing feces in his cell. The order forced Otter Tail County to transfer inmates to other jails, including the Clay County jail in Moorhead.
According to the department inspector general’s order, on Saturday, Feb. 10 the inmate threw feces on the inside of his cell door and smeared it on his cell window, and underneath his cell door into the jail’s dayroom area. Jail staff told him they weren’t going to feed him until he cleaned it up, but he refused.
Not only did jail employees withhold six straight meals from the inmate, the report said, he told an inspector that he was forced to drink toilet water and his own urine because the water to his cell was shut off. Jail staff saw him “ingesting his own feces” on the second day, a Sunday, according to the report. Staff documented that they saw him licking the feces off his cell window, and that he said it was because he was hungry.
But staff did not contact medical staff about his potential physical and mental health conditions until the following Tuesday. He also was denied a daily shower.
The order noted that state regulations strictly prohibit withholding food from detainees as punishment. It said the jail’s failure to comply “has contributed to conditions that have the potential to pose an imminent risk of life-threatening harm or serious physical injury to individuals confined or incarcerated in the facility if left uncorrected.”
The incident came to light Feb. 20 when the jail administrator contacted the Department of Corrections to self-report the staff actions and told the agency she had launched an internal investigation with the help of local law firm. The department decided it would also conduct its own review.
The inmate was transferred to a jail in a neighboring county.
The sheriff’s statement did not dispute the state’s findings.
Corrections officials ordered refresher and remedial training for jail staff, including on proper supervision of inmates, inmate rights and recognizing the signs of mental illness.
Restoration of the jail’s license to resume normal operations hinged on the completion of all corrective actions ordered and assurance that a plan has been created to prevent such an incident from happening again, the order said.
(The Associated Press contributed to the original story)
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