FLINT, MI – A terminally-ill woman was stripped naked, thrown to the ground in a cement jail cell and denied medical attention for injuries requiring surgery during a three-day stay at the Genesee County Jail, a new lawsuit claims.
Filed Jan. 10 in federal court, the lawsuit alleges that jail staff neglected the medical needs of then-55-year-old Jayne Cramer after she was arrested on Jan. 12, 2015, pushing her to the floor of a jail cell where she was unable to move due to a physical disability.
Unable to stand or move to a toilet due to several missing toes, the woman was forced to urinate and defecate on herself, the lawsuit alleges.
Cramer and her attorney, Lawrence Rothstein, previously filed a near-identical federal lawsuit against the county and sheriff’s department in 2015, but the case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by both parties in April 2016.
Dismissal without prejudice means the case’s same claims can be brought again in court at a later date.
Rothstein could not be reached for comment on the case.
There is currently no attorney on file for the county in the current case.
Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell deferred comment on the lawsuit to attorney Michael Edmunds, who represented the county in the previous case.
Edmunds said the lawsuit’s claims are “simply untrue.”
“The plaintiff is a nice lady and the lawyer is a nice gentleman, but these allegations are false,” Edmunds said.
Edmunds has not been formally retained to represent the county and sheriff’s department in the current suit but said he is familiar with Cramer’s allegations from when they were brought against the county in 2015.
Edmunds said no jail records reflect that a deputy put their hands on Cramer, that she was given medical attention while incarcerated.
However, the newly-filed lawsuit claims jail staff ignored Cramer’s cries for pain after she was pushed to the ground, and “instead ridiculed (Cramer) for complaining and crying out in pain due to her injuries and state and indicated that she does not need any medical attention and is just faking an injury.”
The lawsuit states that a deputy “used excessive physical force” on Cramer by “violently pushing and turning her and causing her to fall to the ground, and suffer severe and debilitating injuries,” which ultimately required surgery and the insertion of a metal rod and three pins in her left leg.
While the woman was on the ground, the deputy attempted to roll the woman over by using his foot, the lawsuit claims.
After explaining to jail staff that she had pre-existing medical conditions, was under a doctor’s care and required to take multiple medications regularly, Cramer was still deprived much of her medication, the lawsuit alleges. The suit also claims that the jail’s medical staff refused to schedule X-rays for the woman’s injuries.
When Cramer was released from the jail three days later on Jan. 15, 2015, staff refused to call her an ambulance and instead pushed her out of the jail in a wheelchair, telling her to call herself, the lawsuit claims.
According to a police report attached to court records, state troopers arrested Cramer on Jan. 12, 2015, after responding to a disturbance near a bus stop on the 800 block of West Court Street. After running her name through a law enforcement database, police found a valid arrest warrant for Cramer in Florida.
She was charged in Genesee County with a single count of being a fugitive from justice, but the charges were dropped and the case closed on Jan. 14, 2015, after Florida courts said they did not wish to transport her back to the state for prosecution, according to court records.
A hearing date has not yet been scheduled for Cramer’s current lawsuit.
Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2018/01/jail_lawsuit_cramer.html