Death of inmate at BIA jail investigated
Authorities are investigating the death of a 27-year-old woman found dead last weekend in a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs jail cell on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
Misty E. Ford, who was receiving medical treatment for a heart and lung condition, complained of chest pains the day before she was found dead, her family members say.
When they requested treatment for her, an ambulance crew was summoned to the jail but didn’t treat the inmate, concluding “she was faking it,” the family members said Friday.
Immediately after the woman was found dead Sunday morning, three other female inmates in the jail, who also had sought help for the victim, were released from custody ahead of their scheduled release dates, family members said. They couldn’t be immediately located Friday for comment.
The FBI, which investigates deaths on Indian reservations, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs now are both looking into circumstances surrounding Ford’s death, authorities said.
BIA officials who supervise the jail on the Spokane reservation said they couldn’t discuss the investigation and referred questions to Matt Pryor, the BIA’s regional law enforcement supervisor in Billings.
He referred a telephone call to his assistant, John Oliveria, who couldn’t be reached for comment.
The victim’s fiance, Steve Andrews, said Friday he had visited his girlfriend for the 15 minutes allowed during visiting hours at the jail in Wellpinit last Saturday.
“She said, ‘There’s something wrong. I know my body. I need to go to the hospital,’ ” Andrews said.
He immediately told a jail supervisor that his girlfriend needed medical treatment.
Misty Ford’s sister, Randi Ford, and their mother, Ethel “Vonnie” Ford, also visited her that day and attempted to convince the jail staff that she needed immediate medical treatment.
But no one acted upon the requests, the family members said.
The victim had pressed an alarm bell at least four times during the night, but no one responded until she failed to awake for breakfast at 6 a.m., Andrews said he was told by the other inmates.
Misty Ford was arrested by tribal police in early August on charges of attempting to elude an officer and driving under the influence. In tribal court, she was sentenced to seven months in jail, to be followed by two months of substance abuse treatment.
It wasn’t her first run-in with the law. She had earlier led Spokane police on a similar chase, her family said.
In response to the requests from family members, a jail supervisor said an ambulance crew had already been summoned to the jail just before Andrews’ arrival. Andrews said he was told the medical crew declined to take the inmate to a hospital “because they thought she was faking it.”
“She asked for the help she needed, and they just wouldn’t listen,” said Ford’s sister, Sherry.
On at least two other occasions since she landed in jail in early August, Misty Ford had been taken by ambulance from the BIA jail in Wellpinit to the emergency room at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.
Andrews said Ford, who had been his companion for five years, was suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a disease that prevents oxygen from traveling from the lungs to the bloodstream.
She was being treated by Dr. Timothy Chestnut, a Spokane pulmonologist, who had prescribed an experimental drug that costs $10,000 a month, Andrews said.
When her doctor last saw her about a month ago, he ordered her to use oxygen while in the jail. Andrews said his fiancee didn’t get her portable oxygen tank in the jail until about two weeks before her death.
Andrews said his fiancee “was mouthy sometimes and not afraid to speak her mind. So the jailers really didn’t like her much, I believe.”
On occasions, she was taken from the Wellpinit jail to an adjoining medical clinic in shackles, despite her medical condition that made breathing and movement difficult, Andrews said.
“While she was in jail, I was under the belief she would receive medical attention whenever she needed it,” Andrews said. “I guess I was wrong.”