CHARLESTON – The family of a 26-year-old man who died while being detained at a regional jail facility has reached a $1 million settlement in the middle of the trial following “shocking” testimony that showed officer misconduct led to his death.
Zachary “Alex” Bailey had been detained at North Central Regional Jail in Doddridge County in 2019. In her original complaint, Bailey’s mother Robin Bailey claimed corrections officers suffocated her son.
During the third day of the trial August 21 before Kanawha Circuit Judge Tera Salango, former NCRJ corrections officers provided what Bailey’s attorneys called “devastating testimony to the jury.”
Forbes
| File photo
That evening after the testimony, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation decided to settle with the family for $1 million, which is the limit of the state’s insurance coverage for such an incident. The settlement was finalized and recorded August 22.
“The testimony presented in this case described the most horrific death one can imagine,” attorney Jesse Forbes said in a statement provided to The West Virginia Record. “To die gasping and begging for air, as was testified to in this case, is not only a tragedy it is the most brutal, malicious and deplorable thing one can imagine. This has no place in a civilized society. While the result provides an acknowledgement to this heartbroken family for the wrong suffered, the details testified to in this trial describe a system that hasn’t just been broken, it’s been burned to the ground.”
According to the original complaint, Bailey of Parkersburg was arrested July 8, 2019, and taken to Camden Clark Medical Center’s emergency room for clearance before he was incarcerated. He complained of lower back pain and pain in his knees and wrist following a traffic accident the day before. He tested positive for amphetamines, methamphetamines and Ecstasy.
Bailey had been charged with burglary after he had got high and went into a neighbor’s barn-type woodworking business and fell asleep. At the time of the incident, state corrections officials said Bailey had "a medical episode.”
The civil complaint says Bailey was agitated and incoherent while in a holding cell at the jail when four correctional officers arrived at the cell. Two of them entered the cell to restrain Bailey, who resisted and broke free into the corridor outside the cell. He was subdued and placed face down on the floor.
“A heavy-set officer was lying on top of (Bailey), mirroring his position as the other three correctional officers stood watching,” the complaint states. “Bailey was heard yelling and pleading with the officer to get off him, indicating that he was clearly in distress and unable to breathe. The heavy-set officer was observed lying on top of … Bailey, smothering him even after Mr. Bailey ceased resistance and displayed no signs of further movement or protest.”
The complaint says the officer continued to sit on Bailey’s limp body even after “Bailey’s feet and lower legs were turning blue and he appeared to be in dire respiratory distress.”
When the officer did get off of Bailey, the complaint says the officers told the other inmates to move away from the holding cell window. One officer then hung blankets over the window, but it says the blanket was too short to cover the entire window. Correctional officers and medical staff began life-saving measures on Bailey.
“Not even three hours from Zachary A. Bailey’s initial arrival to the NCRJ, officers were observed removing Mr. Bailey’s deceased body,” the complaint states.
During testimony in this week’s trial, former corrections officers testified Bailey was removed from a holding cell and was hit, punched, positioned in an improper chokehold and piled upon by six officers for up to seven minutes cutting off his ability to breathe and causing him to plead for the officers to let him go.
That same former officer told the jury that after Bailey said “he couldn’t breathe” that “his body started convulsing a little more. It was getting more serious, more definite than you could tell energy just kind of slowly leaving him, and it was – death rattle after that.” The former officer also said Bailey “was purple from head to toe.”
The former officer said Bailey’s death had haunted him for the last five years, having heard other officers calling Bailey names and, after he was clearly dead, commenting, “Not so tough now, are you?”
Former NCRJ inmates also testified as witnesses to the incident.
One said the correctional officers were bending Bailey’s neck, piling on him, pinning him and holding him down while Bailey said he couldn’t breathe. The inmates also testified that the officers taunted Bailey as he was unable to breathe and went limp.
“The former officer’s testimony disturbed everyone in the courtroom,” Forbes told The Record. “Jurors were audibly shocked. The testimony depicted not just the brutalization of this young man by smothering him to death, it depicted officers taunting him and punching him after his lifeless body had turned blue on the ground beneath them.”
Attorney L Dante diTrapano, who also represented the family, agreed.
“The testimony in this trial described the most conscious-shocking death a person could suffer,” diTrapano told The Record. “Begging for breath at the hands of correctional officers has no place anywhere in the world much less the United States of America.
“The jury saw the truth, and the family believes they would have awarded a far higher verdict. However, no amount of money will bring this young man back to this wonderful family or bring a father back to his son, but this settlement is an acknowledgment that brings some sense of justice for these terribly unjust acts.”
Despite numerous issues and lawsuits regarding the state jail system, diTrapano said this situation still is particularly heinous.
“To have former correctional officers describe the treatment of a detainee in the way that was testified to before this jury not only shocks the conscious, it should send shockwaves through all of our communities,” he said. “When our society sends someone to jail we must believe they are safe, otherwise we lose confidence in the system as a whole.
“The truth came out in this case, and we hope this result allows this family to heal in the best way possible as they continue to care for Zachary’s young son.”
In addition to Forbes and diTrapano, attorneys Tony Werner and Amanda Davis represented the family in the case.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 19-C-1163