Thursday, March 8, 2012

Inmate jailed in Lake County dies after injury

By Lisa Black — Chicago Tribune


Inmate jailed in Lake County dies after injury

(MCT) — Eugene Gruber was drunk, hostile and uncooperative when he walked into the Lake County Jail, but a day later, he was paralyzed, had a broken neck and barely registered a pulse after an encounter with guards, records show.

Gruber died Saturday at a Chicago rehabilitation hospital where doctors had been trying to wean him off a ventilator, four months after the jail incident, family members said Monday.

How Gruber, 51, was treated over the 24 hours following his arrest on disorderly conduct and trespassing charges Oct. 31 led to a criminal investigation by the Lake County state's attorney and the firing of at least one jail nurse, according to documents released to the Tribune in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The state's attorney's office has declined to press charges after finding no evidence of criminal intent, officials said. But documents and video from the investigation raise questions about jail procedures and the physical handling of Gruber, who complained for hours that he couldn't move his legs before paramedics were called the next morning.

Gruber's case marks the second unusual incident reported at the jail since last fall. Inmate Lyvita Gomes, an India native who had shown signs of mental illness in jail, died Jan. 3 after launching a 15-day hunger strike. Her family has questioned her treatment in jail and events leading to her incarceration, which began when she missed jury duty — something she was ineligible to serve, anyway, as a noncitizen — and was charged with resisting arrest.

Gruber's injury appeared to have resulted from a neck-twisting "take-down" maneuver made as guards struggled to change his clothes, records show. Officers did not document the physical altercation in their required daily reports, noting only that they pepper-sprayed him because he was combative and threatened violence against guards, according to records.

A nurse told jail guards that if Gruber were really paralyzed, he would "urinate on himself" — a test that a physician later told investigators was not an appropriate measure for paralysis.

Autopsy results from Gruber's death Saturday are "pending further studies," which could take up to eight weeks, the Cook County medical examiner's office said.

"We think he was murdered in the Lake County Jail," said Gruber's cousin, Charles Gruber, formerly a police chief in Elgin and South Barrington. "I think it's definitely related to the injuries he received."

During Gruber's incarceration, security videos show, deputies hoisted him by the armpits and carried him, legs dragging, through the jail. Other images appear to show an officer holding a slumping Gruber up for his mug shot. No cameras were present in the cells where the pepper-spraying and take-down maneuver occurred, so investigators had to rely on witness reports, some of which contained conflicting statements, according to records.

When Gruber was taken to the hospital almost 24 hours later, jail officials apparently failed to relay to doctors there that Gruber was complaining of paralysis or might have suffered a spinal injury, and a back stabilizer was not used when he was brought in.

Sheriff Mark Curran, who requested that the state's attorney's office investigate Gruber's case, is reviewing the agency's findings, which were turned over in January.

He issued a statement that reads in part: "The Sheriff's administration is currently reviewing the comprehensive report to determine if any policies or procedures were violated during Mr. Gruber's incarceration."

Gruber had spent the past month at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital in Chicago, said Mark Smolens, an attorney representing Gruber's family.

"It shouldn't have happened," Smolens said. "He walked into the jail. Then a couple of hours later … he's obviously paralyzed — notwithstanding the fact they dragged him around the jail like a sack of potatoes for almost 24 hours until the following the day."

The paralysis apparently was from the mid-chest down, affecting Gruber's diaphragm, Smolens said. Gruber could talk when off the ventilator for short periods of time, but could not swallow and was on an all-liquid protein diet, Smolens said.

Before he was moved to Schwab, records show, Gruber was in the intensive care unit. Investigators tried to interview him there on Dec. 10 but "due to Gruber's condition, he was unable to speak but he could communicate by pointing at letters on a board," a report states. At that time, Gruber communicated that an officer had twisted his head and neck in a violent manner, according to the report.

A doctor at Waukegan's Vista Medical Center East, where Gruber was first taken, said Gruber told her that while in jail, "the police put his head between his legs like a wheel or windmill. Gruber continued saying the police drug him around on the floor and left him to die as a dead noodle," according to an interview with investigators.

Christen Bishop, chief of special investigations for the state's attorney's office, said before Gruber's death that she had closed the case.

"Our investigation revealed no evidence that anyone at the jail had willfully or intentionally caused bodily harm to Mr. Gruber," Bishop said. "Therefore no criminal charges were filed."

On Monday, after learning of Gruber's death, Bishop said: "Obviously, if we are given additional information, as in any case, such as autopsy results, we would review those."

A lengthy record

Unemployed and without a permanent home, Gruber was no stranger to authorities in Lake, Cook, DuPage and Kane counties. He had been arrested numerous times for offenses, many alcohol-related, dating to the 1980s. He had served three prison sentences since 2007, most recently from June 9 to Sept. 9 for a parole violation, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Gruber's sister, who did not want to be identified, said her brother worked as a flight attendant for 13 years but struggled with alcohol abuse. He had turned to carpentry work, and lived off and on with friends or family in Grayslake.

She told investigators she saw her brother the day he was arrested and had given him money for supplies, according to the report. She said her brother "lived on the streets and he was a drinker, but he would not hurt anyone."

She said he normally texted her two or three times daily, unless he was drunk, so she knew something was wrong Nov. 1 when she hadn't heard from him.

Gruber had been arrested about 7:30 a.m. the day before, after sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call from a woman complaining that he was banging on the door of her Grayslake-area home, police reports show.

The chronology of events can be pieced together from investigators' interviews and reports.

About 8:30 a.m. Oct. 31, Gruber was brought to the County Jail in Waukegan, where several correctional officers reported that he was vulgar, belligerent and combative while being patted down and searched.

Gruber refused to take off his boots and outer clothing as part of the search, said two officers, who moved him to a holding cell. Once there, Gruber continued to resist orders, so one officer pepper-sprayed him in the face and left him alone in the cell for a few minutes, records show.

The officers and a lieutenant then moved Gruber to a shower room, where he was allowed to rinse his face before a nurse flushed his eyes with saline. He then was moved to an adjacent changeover room to put on dry jail clothing, with four jail employees present.

Officers reported Gruber refused to put on the clothing, so they began forcibly dressing him. Two officers reported seeing Gruber ball his fists and say, "Now what?" while one officer was pulling up Gruber's boxer shorts.

That officer forced Gruber to the ground by pulling his head down with his right hand, and grabbing his left shoulder with the other in a twisting motion, according to interviews. The officer said he was trying to pull Gruber away from the wall to avoid a metal grab bar behind Gruber's back. He "landed on his butt kind of hard," the officer who made the maneuver told investigators.

A sergeant who was in the changeover room offered a different version of events, saying he saw Gruber leaning against the wall, where he slouched, then was guided slowly to the floor into a seated position. When told his story differed from the other witnesses, he declined to change his account, according to the report.

After that, the officers dressed Gruber as he lay on the floor. When he refused to get up, one held him by the armpits and another grabbed his legs and they carried him through the booking area and into a cell, where he remained for most of the next 24 hours, according to reports.

Bad assessment

Over the course of the day, Gruber repeatedly told correctional officers he couldn't walk and was paralyzed, according to records. Several officers reported that they thought he might still be intoxicated because of his demeanor.

But by 7 p.m., he hadn't touched his meal trays, and a nurse was asked to look at him. The nurse rubbed the bottoms of Gruber's feet, then told an officer, "If he is really paralyzed he will urinate himself," according to the officer.

Correct Care Solutions, a company that is paid $2 million annually to provide medical services to the Lake County Jail, later fired the nurse for failing to properly assess Gruber, to document the interaction or pass along information to the next shift, according to the state's attorney's report.

Officers still hadn't fingerprinted or photographed Gruber as part of the booking procedure. They tried to photograph him about midnight, according to a report, initially deleting a photo from the system because it showed a correctional officer in the background who appears to be propping up Gruber.

About 8 a.m. Nov. 1, officers again attempted to photograph Gruber but found his condition had deteriorated to the point that they called for a nurse. "They hurt me, officer ... they hurt me, my neck and back," Gruber told an officer he recognized from previous stays, records state.

The nurse found that Gruber slurred his words, his skin was pale, his feet were cold and purple and he could not hold up his head. She "noticed Gruber turn blue and his eyes started to roll back." She found a faint pulse and advised others to call 911 for an ambulance, the report states.

Gruber was transported by ambulance to Vista Medical Center East, where doctors found him to be critically ill with low blood pressure and a collapsed left lung. Doctors weren't initially aware he had suffered an upper spine injury and had been told he was suffering from alcohol withdrawal, records show.

They later determined he had a broken neck and performed two surgeries.

The neurological surgeon, Dr. Robert Erickson, said the twisting maneuver likely caused Gruber's injury, according to an interview with investigators. He described this type of injury as "being seen in severe car crashes and sometimes found in football injuries, where a person is tackled by two or three players and has his head, neck and body twisted in several different directions."

In a prepared statement, Correct Care Solutions Executive Vice President Patrick Cummiskey said he couldn't comment about a patient or employee. But he said the Nashville-based company's "dedicated local team members provide a valuable service to our patient population within Lake County. With tens of thousands of patient contacts each year, our staff is focused on the provision of quality health care."

He noted that the company's Lake County program has been accredited by both the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Corrections Association as meeting or exceeding national standards.

More oversight

Richard Lichten, a 30-year law enforcement veteran and expert on use of force, said all inmates must be searched thoroughly when booked into a jail, which includes removal of shoes or boots. If they are intoxicated, they should be evaluated medically first.

While Lichten, a Los Angeles-based consultant, declined to comment on Gruber's case, he questioned the need for officers to force a combative inmate to get dressed after he has been searched for weapons and drugs.

"Here's the choice you have: Fight a man and put him in jail clothes, or put him in a cell naked and tell him, 'When you're ready to get dressed, let us know,'" said Lichten, who recommends that officers document everything with a hand-held camera.

"Get his refusal on video," he said. "Later on when he sobers up and calls his attorney, you say, 'Well look at this.'"

Charles Gruber said that he hopes to learn what Lake County Jail procedures are, and if they were followed.

"He never was a bad person. It's just that he had an alcohol problem," he said.

The Gruber case shows the dangers of jails and prisons not only for the inmates but also correctional officers and employees, said John Maki, executive director of the John Howard Association of Illinois, a Chicago-based nonprofit that monitors prisons and pushes for reforms.

Jails and prisons, including Lake County, would benefit from independent oversight, more transparency and rigorous training of employees, Maki said.

"Oversight has to be independent of the organization for any agency to avoid a potential conflict of interest or appearance of one," Maki said. "This is a moment, too, for Lake County to look at itself to see if we do everything we could to prevent this."

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