Seattle Jail Reaches $750K Settlement With Family of Photographer Who Committed Suicide While Jailed
A Seattle Jail has agreed to settle with the family of a man who committed suicide while serving time inside the jail.
The lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. District Court in Seattle. As a result of the complaint, King County has agreed to pay the family of Michael Clinard $750,000 for not taking the necessary action to prevent his death.
Michael Clinard was serving time in the King County Jail because of domestic abuse charges. The lawsuit described Clinard as a magazine photographer and father of three. During his time as a photographer, he gained a national presence and his portfolio included shots for the cover of Fortune's 2015 “Fortune 500” magazine issue.
The lawsuit goes on to paint a grim picture of his professional and personal descent. According to the complaint, in 2013, Clinard was the victim of a traumatic brain injury after an assault in New York. Following the traumatic brain injury, Clinard suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder. As a result of his mental health issues, Clinard was on several different medications.
According to his family, when Clinard was taken into jail, he was never seen by a mental health expert. Additionally, although doctors knew about the medication he took, they never probed deeper into his mental health issues.
Consequently, the lawsuit accuses jail doctors of denying him access to his medication, one of which included Lorazepam. The family insists that because Clinard did not have access to his medication, his mental health began to deteriorate. The complaint goes on to detail that over the course of three weeks, Clinard began to alert jail officials that he felt like there was something wrong with him. It was not until January 3rd that Clinard was found dead in his cell.
A spokesperson for the jail has addressed the lawsuit but did not go into the specifics of Clinard’s case. King County's Noah Haglund shared that in an effort to check for risk factors, “anyone booked into King County jails undergoes an extensive health screening by an intake nurse.”
