DETROIT (WXYZ) — An inmate serving a sentence for a non-violent misdemeanor was brutally beaten less than 24 hours after he arrived at the Wayne County jail last Thursday.
Thomas Carr, 53, died yesterday after his family removed him from life support.
“Not everybody’s going to end up in jail,” said his sister Ellen Ogden. “But those who do should not be given a death sentence in the jail.”
Carr walked into the Wayne County jail last Thursday to serve a 71-day sentence for a charge of operating while intoxicated. But the next day, according to sheriff’s officials, Carr was brutally attacked by his cellmate.
He was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital, where his sisters came to his bedside.
“When I managed to get back to the room and back in, it was horrifying what was done to him,” said sister Virginia Adkins.
“It’s indescribable, the condition that he is in,” said sister Ellen Ogden. “Seeing what was done to him was just brutal.”
Carr could not speak, his sisters said.
The trauma to his head was catastrophic, they were told, with multiple bones in his face fractured and his eye socket broken. Carr was on life support.
“He’s not going to make it,” Adkins aid Wednesday afternoon, while her brother was still alive. “The decision has been made to remove him off life support. Right now we’re working with Gift of Life.”
The attack on Carr came less than three years after Wayne County Corporal Bryan Searcy was attacked and killed inside another Wayne County jail by an inmate.
The Wayne County Deputy Sheriff's Association, and later Searcy's family, claimed that chronic understaffing inside the jail contributed to his death.
The 53-year-old was attacked by his cellmate, according to the sheriff’s office, who was nearly half his age.
28-year-old Claude Lewis came to the Wayne County jail after being charged with domestic violence. Court records say he already had an assault conviction on his record.
How this attack was made possible is under investigation tonight, but some who have worked inside the jail believe they know.
“This is due to the staffing cuts and the conditions,” said Reginald Crawford, a spokesman for the Wayne County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. “The dangerous, hazardous environment that exists.”
Carr was attacked on the 11th floor of jail division 1 where there are guard stations at each of the 4 corners of the floor, and another station in the center. When fully staffed, there are five deputies.
But starting in 2021, as an internal memo shows, the staffing policy changed due to understaffing.
There would be only three guards on certain floors going forward, the memo said. Because the guard in the center is in a fixed position, that left only one guard free to move on each side of the floor.
“When the staffing was cut from five to three...the result was two unoccupied wards which contained inmates,” Crawford said. “And that was just a formula for disaster.”
In July of 2021, only a few months after the change was made, Crawford sent an e-mail to County Executive Warren Evans requesting a meeting.
Crawford wrote that the “staffing shortage and cuts...has created a very dangerous and unsafe work environment..."
“The union expressed this to the sheriff two years ago,” Crawford said. “That this was going to happen again.”
To what degree, if at all, understaffing played in role in this attack is unclear. The criminal investigation, led by Detroit and Michigan State Police continues tonight.
As for Thomas Carr, who only came to the jail for a non-violent misdemeanor, he died Thursday at 2:11 PM after his family removed him from life support.
“This can’t keep happening,” said his sister Virginia. “No family should be put through this. He messed up. He made a mistake. He paid for it with his life.”
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.
