Two more inmates die in Kentucky state prisons, bringing COVID-19 death toll to eight
Two more inmates have died in recent days after testing positive for COVID-19 at Kentucky’s 13 state prisons, bringing the death toll to eight as of Monday night.
The most recent deaths were:
▪ a 61-year-old man who died Saturday while serving a 20-year sentence at the Kentucky State Reformatory in Oldham County. The man was convicted in Harrison and Scott counties on charges including assault and wanton endangerment.
▪ a 37-year-old man who died Monday at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Lyon County. He was serving a 12-year sentence out of Jefferson County for robbery, burglary, and kidnapping.
“This is the first inmate case at KSP (the Kentucky State Penitentiary) and contact tracing was conducted immediately,” said Kentucky Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb.
“A total of 44 inmates and 14 staff were identified and tested, and those results are pending,” Lamb said. “Once we receive the results, DOC will consult with the Department for Public Health to determine next steps.”
Since March, 805 state inmates — or 7.2 percent of the prisons’ population — have been infected with the novel coronavirus, as have 117 prison employees. On Monday, the Kentucky Department of Corrections confirmed 373 active inmate cases and 48 active staff cases.
So far, there have been four inmate deaths at the Kentucky State Reformatory, three inmate deaths at the Green River Correctional Complex in Muhlenberg County and one inmate death at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration has declined to identify inmates dying in its custody during the pandemic.
Major COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in recent months at three state prisons: the Kentucky State Reformatory, the Green River Correctional Complex and the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Shelby County.
A fourth outbreak could be looming. As of Tuesday, 14 inmates and 10 staff were infected at Northpoint Training Center, a medium-security, 551-acre complex in Boyle County that houses 1,113 men, Lamb said.
“At Northpoint, the first positive case was reported on July 17, and a total of 117 tests have been conducted as a result of contact tracing,” Lamb said. “We have isolated the positive inmates and those who have had contact with any positive cases.”
A federal lawsuit filed by inmates at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women, where 234 inmates have been infected, alleges the Department of Corrections responded slowly and clumsily to the coronavirus.
The female inmates say inadequate cleaning, masking and social distancing have allowed the virus to race around inside prison walls, putting their lives unnecessarily at risk. For instance, they say, KCIW’s maximum security unit has no air conditioning. When temperatures soar into the 90s this summer, inmates crowd into the one trailer with an air conditioner unit, so “there is no room to move anywhere without being in someone’s face.”
“I feel like since the COVID outbreak, I am an inmate that’s sitting on Death Row,” one of the plaintiffs, Jerahco Walls, 31, testified at a hearing.
“Every day is just a question of, am I going to contract the COVID today and am I going to be alive tomorrow? My biggest fear is not being able to go home to my children and not being able to be there for them,” Walls said.
In their response to the suit, state corrections officials say they moved swiftly last spring to protect inmates from COVID-19. Outside visitation was canceled and inmate transfers between facilities mostly were halted, officials said, while masks and additional cleaning materials were distributed throughout the prisons.
“I have consulted with the Kentucky Department of Public Health for expert advice on providing a safe environment for inmates,” Corrections Commissioner Cookie Crews said in a June 26 deposition.
Since Crews gave her deposition, infections have quadrupled at the women’s prison.
Last month, the ACLU of Kentucky wrote a letter urging Crews to test all state inmates in every prison for the coronavirus in order to get ahead of the next outbreak.
Instead, the department has waited until COVID-19 outbreaks were underway to begin mass testing at Green River and KCIW. Only then were prison officials able to segregate inmates into different housing units based on whether they had tested positive or negative or had been exposed to someone who tested positive.
Apart from Kentucky’s state prisons, seven inmates have died and at least 337 inmates and 10 employees have been infected during a COVID-19 outbreak at the Federal Medical Center, a federal prison on Leestown Road in Lexington. But that outbreak appears to have mostly abated, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
There also has been a smaller outbreak, with no deaths reported, at the federal prison in Clay County, with 45 inmates and seven staff infected, according to the Bureau of Prisons. One inmate has recovered at the Federal Correctional Institution-Manchester, officials say.
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 12:41 PM.
