A Death Sentence for Disorderly Conduct

 

The story of Shali Tilson, a 22-year-old who died from dehydration at a jail in Georgia.

by JACLYNN ASHLY

It took a little more than atorture

week after his arrest for

twenty-two-year-old Shali Tilson

to be pronounced dead at the

Rockdale County Jail in Conyers,

Georgia, about a thirty-minute

drive east of Atlanta. The cause

of death: dehydration.

“Shali didn’t break any laws.

He didn’t hurt anyone.

He didn’t steal anything,” says

Tynesha, his grieving mother.

Shali was studying criminal

justice at Community College

of Rhode Island and working at

the statehouse. However, after

his father suff ered a stroke,

he returned to his family’s home

in Rockdale County in September

2017 to help care for him.

“I think it really upset Shali,

because he never saw his father

in that state before, and he felt like

he needed to be here to help him

recuperate,” Tynesha tells me, her

voice cracking. “He didn’t think

twice about it. He left his school

and his job. He gave up a lot

to come back and help his family.”

Shali, along with his sister, took

responsibility for the family’s bills

so that Tynesha could leave her

work and stay at home with Shali’s

father full-time. “Shali went to

physical therapy with his father.

He helped his father walk up and

down the driveway. He was a big

part of his father’s recovery.”

“He was very selfl ess,” she adds.

“He put everyone’s needs before

his own.” Tynesha describes

Shali as funny, friendly, loving,

and driven. “He was hardworking

and motivated. Whatever he

was going to do, he would do it.

In his twenty-two years of being

on this earth, if he didn’t do it,

then he was in the process of

getting it done.”

The pressures of seeing his father

in a vulnerable state began to

weigh on Shali, who suff ered from

bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

In Rhode Island, he was able to

manage some of his mental health

issues with diet, exercise, and

medical marijuana — preferring this

regimen to the adverse side

eff ects of prescription medication.

In Georgia, however, access to

medical marijuana is limited;

Shali was forced to juggle the

emotional turmoil of seeing

his father suff ering at the same

time that he lost access to

the medicine he depended on to

stabilize his mental state.

“We saw the toll it was taking on

his mental health, seeing his

father in that state. He couldn’t

communicate with his father like

he used to. He didn’t know how to

handle that. It was overwhelming

for him,” Tynesha explains.

A Death Sentence

On the morning of March 3, 2018,

Shali suff ered a serious mental

health episode and wandered to

the family’s still-vacant former

apartment, which they had moved

out of a few months earlier, and

began slamming on the door. The

owner of the property, located just

down the street from their current

home, called the police on Shali,

assuming he was intoxicated.

According to a civil rights lawsuit

the family has lodged against

detention offi cials at the jail,

when the police arrived, it was

“apparent that [Shali] was in the

midst of a mental health crisis,”

and that prior to and during his

arrest, the young man “yelled

words and phrases that revealed

that his mental state was completely

detached from reality.”

Shali was arrested, transported to

the Rockdale County Jail, and

charged with disorderly conduct

and obstruction of justice, both

misdemeanors. Shali’s bond was

set at $6,000 — $850 of which

the family was expected to pay.

But they could not aff ord it.

“I felt panicked,” Tynesha

recounts. Despite the family

calling several times to request

a visit with their son, they were

told each time that Shali was

not permitted to see visitors.

On March 9, Tynesha and her

husband went to the jail to

demand a visitation. They were

told by one of the deputies that

Shali was under medical supervision

due to his erratic behavior.

They were assured, however,

that Shali was safe.

The family was told they could

return on March 12 for a visit. But

when Shali’s sister arrived at the

jail that day, she was again turned

away. Just a few hours later, Shali

was found dead in a fi ve-by-ten-foot

isolation cell — surrounded

by trash, food, feces, and urine.

According to the family’s civil

suit, when Shali arrived at the jail,

he “remained in an obvious state

of extreme mental distress”; an

offi cer punched him and forcibly

placed Shali into a restraint chair.

The detention offi cers used

force against Shali on numerous

occasions, the suit says. Shali

acted in an “erratic and unpredictable

— but not violent — manner”

that was “a clear manifestation

of his psychosis,” while repeatedly

requesting medical attention.

After about three days, Shali was

transferred to isolation in a

padded cell and placed on suicide

watch, in which the jail’s staff wa

expected to check on him every

fi fteen minutes. The cell he was

locked inside had no furniture,

no bed, no sink or other source of

water, and no toilet — only a hole

in the fl oor covered by a metal

grate for urination and defecation.

Shali remained in isolation for

the next seven days — and died

there. According to an autopsy

conducted by the Georgia Bureau

of Investigation (gbi), Shali died

from blood clots that formed in

his lungs owing to severe dehydration.

He had also experienced

a traumatic brain injury, but the

autopsy could not conclude how

that injury was sustained.

Mawuli Davis, a civil rights

attorney who has taken up Shali’s

case, tells me that Shali was left

without water for at least three

days. According to the civil suit,

the jail’s deputies observed Shali

kicking and banging on the door,

throwing himself against the

door and wall, crying out for help,

and asking for water in the days

leading up to his death — even

noting these observations in their

end-of-shift logs.

According to a grand jury

presentment, which was released

after a monthslong investigation

into Shali’s death, the Rockdale

County Jail did not preserve the

video recordings inside and

around Shali’s cell from March 9

through the early afternoon of

March 12, despite Georgia

mandating that visual recordings

in a jail setting be retained for at

least 180 days. The grand jury was

forced to rely on witness testimonies

for this period of time, which

they had no ability to confi rm.

Two of the jail staff stated that

they had provided Shali with a

cup of water and Gatorade on the

day of his death but were not

sure he drank them. The grand

jury discovered that Sergeant

Dan Lang, the supervisor at the

time of Shali’s death, had falsifi ed

and backfi lled the fi fteen-minute

suicide watch logs that morning,

when in reality he had ignored

Shali for hours before he was

found dead.

The grand jury was able to watch

time-stamped visual recordings of

the inside of Shali’s cell beginning

at 4 p.m. on March 12. It was

8:32 p.m. when Shali’s body was

fi nally discovered.

In the footage, Shali, who is naked

and surrounded by trash and

food, can be seen jumping up and

down, frantically slamming on

the door and pressing an emergency

button that inmates can

use to call for medical help, which

was not working at the time.

Shali then collapses and slumps

over in the corner of the cell.

The video shows his head dropping

to his chest as he loses

consciousness. About three hours

pass before the cell door is opened

and Lang fi nally checks on Shali,

who is unresponsive. A nurse

then arrives on the scene but

makes no attempts to revive him.

Shali’s family was informed the

following day. “My son received

a death sentence for disorderly

conduct,” Tynesha says, as tears

well up in her eyes. “He got a

death sentence for knocking on

the wrong door.”

Torture Chamber

Shali’s body had begun to grow

stiff with the onset of rigor

mortis by the time he was found.

According to the grand jury

presentment, a detainee who was

being held in a cell nearby testifi ed

that he heard Shali screaming

“help me,” and “why y’all doing

me like this,” and “I don’t want

to die like this,” shortly before he

succumbed to dehydration.

The fellow detainee mentioned,

however, that Shali had been

yelling similar statements

throughout the week he was in the

padded isolation cell. A medical

expert and former director and

chief medical examiner for the

gbi noted in his testimony to the

grand jury that the blood clots

in Shali’s lungs would have begun

to accumulate six to twelve hours

before his death.

Shali would have begun to

“experience low blood pressure

and his heart rate would have

been fast.” He also would have had

“dry mouth, possibly sunken

eyes and would have been

lethargic and confused,” the expert

said. “If medical personnel had

been checking skin turgor or

taking vital signs, the dehydration

would have been easily discernible

near the time of Tilson’s death.”

According to Davis, detention

offi cers did not once open the door

to Shali’s cell during the week he

was put into isolation — only

peeking through the cell door’s

window to observe him. The jail’s

staff claims they were not aware

that Shali was in physical distress.

“They never opened the door,”

Davis tells me. “They didn’t

realize he was in distress because

they did not care for him or check

on him. They never opened that

door until he was already dead.

“He was never taken for a shower.

He was not allowed to go to the

bathroom. The lights were not

dimmed, and he could not sleep.

He could not access water on his

own,” he adds. “He was in distress

within hours after they put him in

there because the whole situation

is like a torture chamber.”

The grand jury investigation

concluded that the jail’s administration

“failed to live up to [its]

responsibility [of ensuring Shali’s]

... safety and well-being” and that

this played a “signifi cant role in

failing to prevent [his] death.”

Despite this, however, the grand

jury did “not fi nd evidence that any

person criminally or intentionally

caused the death of Shali Tilson”

or that any “person or persons ...

intentionally withheld water” from

him or “consciously ignored signs

that he was suff ering from physical

distress and/or dehydration.”

The grand jury pointed to a lack of

adequate training of staff as a cause

of the deadly neglect and mistreatment

Shali faced in the Rockdale

County Jail.

“I’m so tired of hearing that these

people need more training,”

Tynesha says, her voice rising

sharply. “Shali was in that jail for

nine days. You have medical

staff and deputies at the jail, and

three diff erent shifts of people —

and not one of those people

noticed that Shali was severely

dehydrated and dying in front of

their eyes?

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist

to have basic common sense,” she

adds. “I’m not a medical professional,

but I can tell when someone

needs help and when someone is

not well. Shali lost twenty pounds

over those nine days he was in

jail. When you’re severely dehydrated,

your skin doesn’t look the

same. Your eyes don’t look the

same. Your organs are shutting

down. You’re not the same person.

“They treated him worse than

an animal. How are you going to

train someone to see other people

as human beings? How does

that work?”

Despite the family’s civil lawsuit

against detention offi cials at

Rockdale County Jail, no one

has been held responsible for

Shali’s death.

Lang had been transferred to

the jail division several months

before Shali’s death, while

criminal charges were pending

over suspicions that he stole

$40,000 in cash and guns from

the evidence unit and sold them

at local pawnshops. Lang then

resigned in April 2018, just a

few weeks after Shali was found

dead. The gbi arrested him in

September over multiple charges

of theft. “If he wasn’t qualifi ed to

be responsible for property, why

would you put him over someone’s

life? It makes no sense,” Davis

says. “It speaks to the jail’s lack

of institutional control and

total disregard for the sacredness

of human life.”

Fiefdom Mentality

No offi cial statistics are made

public on the number of deaths

inside the thousands of jails

scattered across the United States,

where about 10.6 million Americans

are funneled each year.

Most of those in jail have not been

convicted of a crime and will be

released once they pay bail — or,

for those who are too poor, like

Shali’s family, they will remain in

pretrial detention until their case

is concluded.

A 2020 Reuters investigation

documented 7,571 inmate deaths

in more than 500 US jails from

2008 to 2019, a number that rose

25 percent over the last decade.

At least two-thirds of the inmates

who died in these jails were never

convicted of the charges on which

they were being held.

According to Atteeyah Hollie,

senior attorney at the Southern

Center for Human Rights, jails

are a “catchall” for the most

vulnerable sectors of the American

population, such as those suff ering

from mental illness, poverty,

homelessness, or substance abuse

issues. Everything from a minor

traffi c violation, which left Sandra

Bland hanged in a jail cell in Texas

in 2015, to asking for money on

the street can put someone behind

bars in the United States.

“We have people coming into jails

with a host of issues in the exact

moment when they are the most

vulnerable and in the height of

crisis,” Hollie says. “They need

the most help, and they need

interventions, but too often they

enter jail cells or cages, where that

help is not being provided.

“What we see a lot, with people

with mental health issues, is

that they are further punished in

jails by being put into solitary

confi nement,” Hollie adds.

“They are put in cells that, by

design, deprive them of all

sensory stimulation and do

nothing but infl ict more harm on

them. Having a psychiatric

disability adds to the penalty of

this whole system.”

Jails are run by elected sheriff s

who have “outsize power,”

Hollie says. The dramatic power

disparity between sheriff s and

inmates creates ample opportunities

for a “fi efdom mentality”

among sheriff s in US jails who

abuse their power.

Since Shali’s death, three other

inmates at the Rockdale County

Jail have died in custody — one

from alleged suicide, one from

medical complications, and

one who was found unresponsive

in her cell less than forty-eight

hours after her arrest.

The practice of outsourcing

medical care to for-profi t

companies has added to the

rising death toll. Reuters’s

investigation revealed that more

than 60 percent of America’s

top jails now hire private companies

to administer medical

care to inmates. They also found

that, from 2016 to 2018, the jails

relying on the fi ve leading health

care contractors had higher

death rates than facilities where

medical services are run by

government agencies.

The Tilson family’s civil suit

names Wellpath llc, a private

company that was contracted

to provide medical and mental

health services to Rockdale

County Jail, as being partly

responsible for Shali’s death.

“These companies’ primary

motive is to raise profi ts,” Hollie

explains. “And the way they do

that is by spending as little money

as possible. So, when you have

a situation where you have people

who are in the most need of help

being put in the care of a company

trying to spend as little money

as possible, then you have this

potentially deadly situation where

people are not getting the care

they need and losing their lives

because of that.”

Tynesha, meanwhile, has continued

to fi ght for justice years

after her son’s death. “I’m still

here, begging for justice for my

son,” she says. “We have two

dogs, and if I starved them and

left them severely dehydrated,

I would have been slapped

with a felony charge and thrown

in jail three years ago.

“But they have a badge that

allows them to take human life

and get away with it. And I’m

tired of it. I’m so tired of seeing

these families in Georgia that

are suff ering the same grief as I

am — so I’m going to keep

speaking up until I get justice for

Shali. And if I don’t get justice

for my son, maybe somebody else

in this fi ght will." 

JACOBIN