LGBT News Gay Texas Man Dies In Custody After Jail Fails To Administer Medication

Aldrick · Jul 31, 2015

A gay Texas man died in jail after officials failed to give him his prescribed medication.

Jesse Jacobs, 32, died March 13 after suffering a seizure and being rushed to the hospital from the Galveston County Jail.

Jacobs reportedly was detoxing from Xanax, which he’d been taking for 10 years to treat anxiety disorder. Although Jacobs brought his medication with him when he checked in March 6 to serve 30 days for driving while intoxicated, jail medical staff did not administer the Xanax to him.

From KTRK-TV:

“I’m angry,” says Jacobs’ father, also named Jesse. “Because as far as I’m concerned, they executed my son just as sure as if they put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.” …

“Our son was concerned that he was not going to receive his medication,” remembered Diane Jacobs. “He told us, ‘Mom what will happen, if I don’t receive this?'”
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Jacobs’ autopsy lists his cause of death as a seizure. However, the Texas Jail Commission cleared the jail of wrongdoing in Jacobs’ death.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset acknowledged that Jacobs may not have received his Xanax. But the jail isn’t releasing all records related to Jacobs’ confinement because it fears a lawsuit from the family:

“Whatever the doctor, the internal doctor said he was prescribed, was what he was given,” said Sheriff Henry Trochesset. “Individuals come into the jail all the time. Some of them are taking medications that they shouldn’t be, or they say they’re suppose to be on certain medications.”
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Sheriff Trochesset told Houston’s AbOUT Magazine, which broke the story, that Jacobs’ family is “trying to throw some red flag into the air that we apparently did something to him — when he just died of natural causes in jail.” From AbOUT:

With no previous history of this disorder, his treating physician, Dr. D.M. La Grone, M.D. asserts the disorder was developed as a result of Jacobs being deprived of his medications while in the jail. Dr. La Grone is a member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. …

Attorney Umeka Lewis Piccolo, the attorney representing the Jesse Jacobs and the Jacobs family stated that when the personal belongings of Mr. Jacobs was received, inside were his prescriptions. “Never opened, not one pill missing.”
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News of Jacobs’ death comes on the heels of the controversy over the death of African-American woman Sandra Bland, who committed suicide in the Waller County, Texas, jail after being arrested during a routine traffic stop.
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Here is a link to the full story.

I hope they sue and fucking bankrupt the state.

Cedar · Jul 31, 2015

A lawsuit is the least they deserve. Don't care what his sexual orientation was, you don't deprive someone of their medication like that. You never know what side effects they may suffer because of sudden withdrawals like that. They could have easily looked up his medical record and seen that his prescription was legally done by a licensed doctor, it isn't that difficult to do. They should stop using flimsy excuses to cover up their own crime.

Ryu · Jul 31, 2015

^
This is all probably standard procedure, so they know whether it is licensed or not. And they also said something about having giving him what he was prescribed by an 'internal doctor', who would of looked over medical records as well. I'm not trying to defend them, but they were probably just following standard procedure, and this guy could of potentially been taking all sorts of stuff elsewhere off the books.

I don't really see anybody in the right, or the wrong here. Stuff happens. Deal with it.

Moonflower · Jul 31, 2015

Seizures are a known side effect of abrupt withdrawal from Xanax and other drugs of that family. If this jail has a doctor or nurse he or she should have known that and should definitely be sued.
Recent cases have really brought to light that we need to examine what happens when people are arrested and jailed, not just in terms of their constitutional rights, but their human rights as well.

celeste · Jul 31, 2015

They really need to sue those people. At first I thought that he was killed because he was gay, and I entered this thread fuming. At least we know it wasn't a hate crime.

Nevertheless, I hope justice is served.

LGBT News Gay Texas Man Dies In Custody After Jail Fails To Administer Medication

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