Victim's family sues county, sheriff, officers
PRINCETON — The family and estate of the Dover teenager who died a year ago in the Bureau County Jail has sued the county, the sheriff and two correctional officers.
Seventeen-year-old Austin L. Wells of Dover was found hanging from a bed sheet in his jail cell at 6:50 a.m. June 9, 2007. Wells had been dead for seven or eight hours when found by jail staff, according to Bureau County Coroner Janice Wamhoff. A coroner’s jury determined Wells’ death to be a suicide.
Wells was placed in the county jail on June 4, 2007, following his arrest for the Class A misdemeanor of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, specifically for keeping a 16-year-old female, his girlfriend, out past curfew.
The lawsuit, filed June 4 in Illinois Central District Court in Peoria, named the county of Bureau, Bureau County Sheriff John Thompson and correctional officers Sherry Keefer and Chris Spiegel as defendants.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the estate of Austin Wells, along with Wells’ father, Jerry Wells, of Princeton and Wells’ mother, Mindy Davis, of Davenport. The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and an unspecified amount of monetary damages.
In the 18-page lawsuit, Chicago attorneys Janine Hoft and Jan Susler claim the defendants and their policies were deliberately indifferent to the care and treatment required for Wells. The defendants are liable for Wells’ death, the lawsuit states.
In making their claims, the attorneys state Sheriff John Thompson is responsible for the training, supervision and conduct of his employees. He is also responsible to ensure the custody, safekeeping, medical needs and housing of inmates are in compliance with federal and state law, department policies, rules, regulations and related standards.
The lawsuit claims correctional officer Sherry Keefer failed to properly screen, examine, assess or evaluate Wells before he was placed in a cell. She also failed to refer him to any resources or to identify his high risk status.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants knew Wells’ mental health status placed him at a high risk level for suicide and knew he required medical care. The defendants also knew Wells had been identified as a missing person shortly before his entry into the county jail, and that he had expressed threats of suicide.
Concerning the condition of the jail, the lawsuit claims Thompson and the county of Bureau knew the cells door locks didn’t function correctly. Rather than fix the locks, a catwalk-like cage structure was constructed, apparently to protect correctional officers in the event an inmate opened a cell door, the lawsuit continued.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants failed to reconstruct, repair or remedy the cell door locks or the catwalk-like structure, so officers could conduct actual visual checks of each inmate. The officers were not to stray from the catwalk-structure and were not to make visual checks on individual cells during evening hours if only one correctional officer was on duty. The defendants knew Wells could not be seen in his cell from the catwalk.
From 5 to 10:30 p.m. June 8, 2007, Spiegel was solely responsible for conducting required visual checks of Cell Block 2, where Wells’ cell was located. Keefer was responsible for cell block checks from 11 p.m. June 8 to 5 a.m. June 9, 2007.
The lawsuit claims the county and sheriff failed to maintain the structural conditions of the jail as well as adequate staff in order to allow officers to personally observe inmates at least every 30 minutes as required by law.
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