The man who died in St. Louis city jail custody last week had been the focus of an anonymous complaint into the conditions of his incarceration. But when a member of the city’s Division of Civilian Oversight sought to investigate the anonymous report at the City Justice Center, they were barred from the facility.
That’s according to Mike Milton, a member of the Detention Facility Oversight Board tasked with overseeing conditions in the city jail. Milton and other members have long complained bitterly that they are being blocked from doing their jobs — and that without having access to the City Justice Center, they can’t do their jobs.
"We could have saved this man's life," Milton tells the RFT. "[Corrections Commissioner] Jennifer [Clemons-Abdullah] actually turned them away when they tried to investigate that situation."
The anonymous complaint was made in April, Milton says. Only now, as the deceased detainee has been identified as Terrence Smith, are members connecting last week’s in-custody death with the complaint they tried to act on.
Last Thursday, in the early morning hours, Smith suffered what Department of Public Safety spokesman Monte Chambers called "a medical emergency" in the jail infirmary.An ambulance took the 55-year-old Smith to the hospital around 1:30 a.m., and he was pronounced dead at 3:35 a.m.
The revelations about the oversight board being blocked by jail administration from investigating Smith's conditions in the jail prior to his death come amid growing tension between the board and Clemons-Abdullah, who was appointed head of city corrections in 2021.
For months, the oversight board has called for Mayor Tishaura Jones to fire Clemons-Abdullah, and the board has accused both leaders of blocking their oversight work. Last week, oversight board vice-chair Janis Mensah was forcibly removed from the jail and charged with trespassing after trying to investigate Smith's death.
The specifics of the anonymous complaint about Smith's living conditions are unknown. However, KMOV's Shoshana Stahl reported last week that in April Smith fell off the top bunk of a bed in his cell, injuring his spine and upper extremities. Smith was released to a hospital for a few weeks, before returning to the jail.
Smith had been arrested in January on murder charges.
The RFT reached out to the Department of Public Safety for comment. We will update the story when we hear back.
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