Disturbing surveillance footage has emerged showing a mother-of-five’s final hours after she was locked up in a Washington state jail for four days when her husband called 911 for help while she suffered a mental health episode.
Damaris Rodriguez, 43, was found dead in her cell at South Correctional Entity, known as SCORE, in Des Moines on January 3, 2018, after she had been incarcerated for 106 hours – despite not being charged with any crime.
The shocking footage, obtained by DailyMail.com, has been described by the family’s attorney as a ‘window into hell’ and captures four days of alleged neglect by authorities.
It shows the mother in distress, as she is seen stripping naked, crawling along the cell floor, banging on the door and appearing to vomit and hallucinate.
Attorney Nate Bingham told DailyMail.com that starvation, after she didn’t eat for the four days she was kept in the jail, ultimately caused her death.
Jail staff had written in her medical notes on the day she died that she was at risk of starvation ketoacidosis but still failed to seek medical help, it is alleged.
Two other inmates have died at the facility in the two years since Rodriguez died.
Rodriguez’s family have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the correctional facility, saying she was wrongly arrested when she was suffering a ‘mental health episode’ and needed medical help.
The incident began when Rodriquez’s husband, Rey, called 911 on December 30 2017 asking for medical help when his wife was suffering ‘a psychiatric problem’.
In the distressing 911 call shown on CBS News, Rey tells the dispatcher in Spanish: ‘She’s having a psychiatric problem and isn’t behaving normally. She’s being violent and has already hit me twice and I need a medic.’
Instead of medical assistance, police arrived and arrested her for fourth degree assault and booked her into SCORE, the lawsuit states.
Rodriguez was found dead in her cell four days later.
