Family Of Man Who Died At Arlington Jail Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit

By: Margaret Barthel and Jenny Gathright | dcist | March 11th, 2022

Members of Darryl Becton’s family hold signs in his memory at a press conference where they announced a wrongful death lawsuit against the Arlington sheriff and former jail medical provider.

The family of a man who died in custody at the Arlington County Detention Center is suing the county sheriff and the jail health provider at the time for negligence, gross negligence, willful and wanton negligence, and violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives people detained before trial the right to medical treatment.

The wrongful death lawsuit, filed today in Arlington circuit court, was brought by Monique Ford, the sister of Darryl Becton and the administrator of his estate. Becton, a 46-year old Black man, died of complications from opiate withdrawal just days after he arrived at the facility, despite having told correctional and health staff of his health history multiple times.

More than a dozen of Becton’s family members, including his mother, grandmother, sister, aunts, adult children, and grandchildren gathered on the steps of the Arlington County judicial center to demand justice for Becton’s death — and to celebrate his life. Family members held signs and brought framed pictures of Becton, and they remembered a warm, family-oriented man.

“He never once was not there,” said Becton’s daughter, Kaylah Becton. “I remember even just times when we would go to school shopping. He would just make it the best experience ever, like he would pull up in a limo just to take us to go to buy school supplies.”

A mother herself, Becton said she mourned for her and her siblings’ children, who have lost an engaged grandparent.

“Nothing that no one can ever say to me will make me feel better about what happened to my dad,” she said.

The suit says that the jail’s medical staff and deputies failed to respond to Becton’s serious medical situation — or responded to it with deliberate indifference. Ford, Becton’s sister, is requesting a jury trial and $10 million in damages.

The family’s complaint names Corizon Health, the company responsible for providing health care in the Arlington jail until the county terminated its contract suddenly last year, and four of its health staff, including a doctor, two registered nurses, and a licensed practical nurse. (The county has since hired a new health provider for the facility.)

In a separate case, the licensed practical nurse, Antoine Smith, is also being criminally charged by the commonwealth’s attorney with falsifying a health record, following a police investigation into Becton’s death.

The suit also points to Arlington County Sheriff Beth Arthur and a deputy responsible for checking on the jail’s medical unit.

A spokesperson for Arthur said the office had not been served the suit yet as of Friday afternoon, and did not have a comment at this time.

Becton’s surviving family was joined by their attorney, Mark Krudys, and Julius Spain, the president of Arlington’s NAACP chapter.

Spain said the lawsuit was a step towards accountability for the people and institutions who failed Becton, and he said it was part of an emerging pattern of deaths in the Arlington jail. Seven men, most of them Black, have died in the facility in the past seven years. Sheriff Beth Arthur has said that jail leadership takes every death seriously, the circumstances of each were unique, and several remain under active investigation. Arthur told DCist/WAMU last month that the jail has made changes in its policies to ensure the safety of people detained there – and that people who are detoxing at the jail are now checked on by staff every 15 minutes.

Spain said the NAACP plans to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to open a pattern and practice investigation at the facility.

“We’re not going to stop until justice is served. Put yourself in their shoes — his grandmother, his mother, sister, they’re still here and they’re still suffering. And today no one has been held account,” he said.

Spain also criticized Arlington County leadership for not doing more to investigate the pattern of deaths.

“The county board and authorities are innately aware of all the deaths that have occurred even more recently here in Arlington. The expectations right now of the NAACP Arlington are really not that high,” he said. “Let’s be quite frank, because it’s been a couple of years now, we haven’t seen any movement.”

The Arlington County Board vice-chair Christian Dorsey sent a statement on behalf of the board, offering condolences to Becton’s family. The statement said that while it would be inappropriate to comment on a pending lawsuit, the investigation had revealed the need for a new medical provider for the jail, and that the Board “acted swiftly” to make that happen. “We will continue to be responsive to the needs of our residents in order to live up to our belief that ‘each person is important.’”

Becton’s family members had a message for the families of other people who have died in custody in Arlington.

“For the other victims’ families: We know your pain all too well,” said Janae Pugh, Becton’s cousin. “And we will keep you in our prayers as well during this fight, because that is what it is, again, it is a fight we will not back down. We will not cower.”

The complaint the family filed Friday details a timeline of the actions medical staff documented on the day Becton died — and claims that medical staff and other jail staff were negligent in addressing his hypertensive emergency.

According to the lawsuit, Becton arrived at the jail on September 29, 2020, in the middle of the day. On October 1, 2020, shortly after 4 p.m., he was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead of hypertensive cardiovascular disease triggered by withdrawal from fentanyl and heroin.

According to the suit, medical staff took Becton’s blood pressure very early in the morning on Oct. 1 and it was “alarmingly high.” During that early morning period, medical staff gave Becton several medications for his symptoms, including a medication to address his high blood pressure. But the suit says medical staff were not properly following the treatment plan for Becton’s high blood pressure — a condition that he disclosed when he was booked into the jail. Becton also told a nurse that he was withdrawing from heroin and fentanyl — and they recorded that information in his medical file, according to the suit.

The suit goes on to say that nurses observed or recorded Becton vomiting profusely, and complaining of nausea and “debilitating body aches” that he rated a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. Becton also complained of “tremors,” and “diarrhea,” and medical staff noted that his eyes looked “pale.” And the suit alleges that Dr. Richard Ashby, the medical director, was aware of Becton’s condition because his signature was on the patient notes.

“Mr. Becton’s signs and symptoms indicated a clear medical emergency requiring a call to 911,” says the suit. “But such was not done, and Mr. Becton would pay for Corizon’s malfeasance with his life.”

The lawsuit says that an unidentified Corizon Health employee took an “incomplete set of vitals” for Becton at 6:59 a.m. on Oct. 1. But after that, “all monitoring, observations, and treatment of Mr. Becton simply ceases.” The suit claims that these were the last time Becton’s vital signs were taken before he died. In between that 7 a.m. medical check and Becton’s death, the suit says, Becton was checked on 14 times in what are called “visual rounds” by a deputy named Seaton Sok.

“Each of those rounds – if properly conducted – would require Defendant Sok to see Mr. Becton’s dire condition,” the suit says, but “there is no indication in the records that Defendant Sok tried to aid the visibly ill Mr. Becton.”

According to the medical examiner’s report cited by the suit, Becton last interacted with a deputy at around 12:30 p.m., when the deputy dropped food off in his cell and Becton grunted at him.

Becton’s medical record also has an encounter recorded shortly after 2:30 p.m. that day. The records state that Becton “refused medications” at that time. But there is no evidence that Becton signed a medication refusal form — a step that the suit says was required by Corizon’s contract with the Arlington jail, and is standard practice in other jails. According to the suit, “that alleged encounter is highly dubious.” The records do not indicate who recorded Becton’s alleged refusal of medication, but the suit contends that the record was likely falsified, because one Corizon nurse, Smith, was later criminally charged with falsifying patient records.

The suit also notes that if that encounter around 2:30 p.m. happened, that would have been less than two hours before Becton was found unresponsive and just over two hours before he was declared dead.

“Mr. Becton would have most certainly been exhibiting very open and obvious acute symptoms, mandating immediate medical intervention,” reads the complaint. The suit says that shortly after 3pm, Sok conducted an unofficial head count in the medical unit of the jail where Becton was being held. Then, shortly after 4 p.m., a Department of Human Services employee entered the unit, knocked on Becton’s cell and got no response. Medical staff then entered the cell to find him not breathing, without a pulse, and cool to the touch. Becton was pronounced dead later that hour.

“Had Mr. Becton been referred to an Arlington hospital early that afternoon,” the suit alleges, “he would not have died.”

Krudys, the attorney for the family, said his office had been forced to “peel the information away from the sheriff and Corizon Health,” and noted that the lawsuit would open up further internal information from the jail, like incident reports.

“You don’t have to have a fancy shirt and tie to be an important person. You are an important person when you’re meaningful to others and to God,” he said. “We think we have a very strong case and we’re looking forward to litigating it and asking hard questions about the medical care providers in the correctional facility.”

But the family says litigation won’t bring Becton back.

Becton’s aunt, Ramona Pugh, said through tears that Becton had been like a little brother to her, and had supported her through the loss of her son in 2019. She’ll miss his cooking.

“He made seafood,” she said. “We’d laugh. He had children, got grandchildren. He just had a brand new grandbaby he can’t see.”