$5.5 Million Paid for Two Withdrawal Deaths at Washington Jail
The small Seattle suburb of Issaquah (pop. 39,664) paid a whopping $5.5 million for a pair of withdrawal deaths at the city lockup, according to settlement agreements completed in September and October 2024. The latest agreement was completed with a release from the Estate of Kevin Wiley, signed on October 29, 2024, by a representative who filed a tort claim after the 43-year-old died at the Issaquah City Jail on June 9, 2023.
The death was attributed to “acute combined drug intoxication including fentanyl and methamphetamine,” according to a report released by the King County Prosecuting Attorney Public Integrity Team (PIT) on August 27, 2024. That report also found “insufficient evidence to prove that any one [jail] employee by themselves was criminally negligent”—although the report admitted that Wiley’s medical condition “should have been apparent to someone in the jail during the three days he was an inmate.”
Wiley was apparently homeless when Kirkland Police picked him up for misdemeanor shoplifting and took him to the jail. The unnamed cop who arrested him recovered 28 tabs of fentanyl but failed to note them on the arrest report. Wiley was high on fentanyl at the time, but that also escaped notice. It was recorded on his intake form at the Jail, however, that he reported consuming fentanyl the previous day.
Over the next three days, surveillance video showed his “condition deteriorating,” the PIT report continued, and Wiley was “agitated, could not sleep, and vomited multiple times.” Two days into his incarceration, he had a fellow detainee fill out a medical “kite” for him, asking to see a nurse for help while he detoxed. “It is unclear from the evidence whether any guard reviewed or received the kite,” the PIT report said. A second fellow detainee attempted to get help from an unnamed guard, who promised to come when her partner guard returned from break. But that never happened. Nor did they conduct required hourly checks of his cell.
When the two guards went off duty, they also failed to notify guards on the next shift of Wiley’s distress. A jail nurse who arrived for duty the day that he died said that she wasn’t notified, either. Surveillance video captured a guard who allowed a detainee to retrieve a mop to clean up Wiley’s vomit as he apparently stepped over the kite that had been written the day before. The video also recorded Wiley when he went into cardiac arrest at 10:55 a.m.—and that no guards responded until fellow detainees noticed 20 to 25 minutes later that Wiley wasn’t breathing. See: In-Custody Death of Kevin Wiley, Kirkland Police Department, #23-20150, King Cty. Prosecuting Atty. PIT (Aug. 2024).
With the aid of attorney Amanda M. Searle of Connelly Law Offices in Seattle, Rachel Dickey, as personal representative of Wiley’s Estate, filed a tort claim against the City on behalf of his minor children. The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, which included a payout to the Estate of $3 million from the Washington Cities Insurance Authority (WCIA). Another WCIA payment was authorized to cover the cost of a settlement guardian ad litem (SGAL) for Wiley’s children; that bill came to $2,250, which was paid to the SGAL, attorney John Christensen of Evergreen Personal Injury Counsel in Tacoma. See: In re the Settlement of A.W., Wash. Super. (King Cty.), Cause No. 24-2-10637-1; and In re the Settlement of Nicholas Wiley, Minor, Wash. Super. (King Cty.), Cause No. 24-2-10638-9.
It Happened Again
Another settlement agreement was completed with a release signed on September 16, 2024, by representatives of the Estate of David McGrath, a 48-year-old who died exactly one year earlier at the City Jail. Also apparently homeless and picked up for shoplifting, he was not booked that day because staffers said he was “uncooperative” and appeared drunk or high.
After spending the night in a holding cell, he admitted to taking fentanyl when interviewed the next morning by a jail nurse, whose notes described him as “irritable, agitated and restless.” The nurse also advised jailers to transport McGrath to a hospital to obtain a prescription for Librium to treat his withdrawal symptoms. But when he died three hours later, he had never left his cell at the jail. A detainee food worker who attempted to deliver McGrath a meal about an hour before he died reported that McGrath refused the meal and seemed “sluggish.” But guards, who had logged regular cell checks, noted no signs of his distress. After his death, a medical examiner blamed it on fentanyl intoxication.
Again with the aid of attorney Searle, representatives of McGrath’s estate filed suit in state Superior Court for King County, accusing the City and its officials of deliberate indifference to his serious medical need, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, which included a $2.5 million payout from the WCIA to Plaintiffs Linda, Lainey and MacKenzie McGrath. See: McGrath v. City of Issaquah, Wash. Super. (King Cty.), Cause No. 24-2-07269-1.
The City Council voted to approve both payouts late on the night of September 16, 2024, after exiting a 23-minute executive session called to discuss them. Videotape of the meeting, however, did not resume, according to Cascade PBS, so there is no archive of the vote.
Additional source: Cascade PBS
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Related legal case
McGrath v. City of Issaquah, Wash. Super. (King Cty.),
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Cause No. 24-2-07269-1 |