Spokane County faces $5.25 million claim over 2018 jail death

The family of a man who died in the Spokane County Jail has filed a $5.25 million claim against the county, saying his suicide could have been prevented if it weren’t for systemic failures at the jail and the public defender’s office.

The tort claim filed over the death of 24-year-old Chris Rogers will likely become a lawsuit if it is rejected by the county. Rogers, who suffered from schizophrenia, was one of three men who hanged themselves with bedsheets in the downtown jail in 2017 and 2018. Five other inmates died of various causes during the same 14-month span.

Rogers grew up in Nine Mile Falls and graduated from Lakeside High School in 2013. He was arrested on Nov. 28, 2017, after running away from a mental health treatment center and stealing a woman’s car from a parking lot near the NorthTown Mall.

Rogers was motivated by a delusion that had stuck in his mind for years, one that he described in letters and spoke about often: He believed Martians were bent on destroying his family, and the only way to stop them was to sacrifice himself.

Attorneys for Rogers’ family say he was clearly at risk of suicide, and they point to several problems beyond overcrowding and short-staffing at the jail.

“You don’t have to be a mental health professional to recognize this is serious,” said attorney Josh Maurer.

Attorney Derek Reid said records show Rogers was placed on suicide watch for several days after his arrest, while the jail’s medical and mental health providers were “fumbling” to determine whether he was due for a new shot of a long-acting psychiatric medication.

It’s not clear whether Rogers received that dose, or why he was taken off suicide watch. Maurer said records indicate jail staff checked on Rogers every 15 minutes or so, but they don’t include observations about his physical or mental state.

“It’s a check-the-box system. It’s a cover-your-(butt) system, so that ‘We can verify we’ve done what we’re absolutely legally required to do,’ ” Maurer said. “But there is no discussion (in the records) about how the defendant or the inmate is presenting on that particular day – nothing that would provide a mental health professional with the tools necessary to give a proper assessment as to what this individual needs moving forward. Nothing.”

Additionally, Reid said, Rogers did not see an attorney for more than a week after his arrest due to a backlog of cases at the county public defender’s office. That backlog was caused by the office limiting how many cases are assigned to each defender so it doesn’t violate state caseload guidelines.

In another delay, a court-ordered report known as a competency evaluation, prepared by psychiatrists at Eastern State Hospital, did not reach the court file until the day before Rogers died – Jan. 3, 2018.

Maurer assigned blame to the Board of County Commissioners, who allocate funding for the jail, the prosecutor’s office and the public defender’s office.

“The BOCC is a big, big part of this problem,” Maurer said, “because they control the money that makes everything else work.”

Following a Spokesman-Review investigation into Rogers’ death, and the deaths of 41-year-old Brandon Ryans and 36-year-old Patrick Flynn, jail officials in 2018 decided to stop issuing bedsheets to inmates and hired an expert consultant on suicide in correctional facilities.

On Thursday, county spokesman Jared Webley said officials couldn’t comment on the claim related to Rogers’ death.

“Independent counsel has been assigned for this claim to collect pertinent information and conduct an initial legal analysis of the claim,” Webley said in an email. “The county’s assessment of this claim is ongoing and no further comment would be appropriate at this time.”