Adam Ferrise
Advance Ohio Media
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Brenden Kiekisz’s death two days before the start of 2019 was the eighth inmate death at the Cuyahoga County Jail in six months.
His death came after a U.S. Marshals Service report that described inmate abuse, jail officers withholding food as punishment and poor medical and mental healthcare for inmates, among a myriad of issues.
Cuyahoga County officials started 2019 scrambling for answers. Earlier this month, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections issued its most optimistic report that things in the jail are starting to improve.
State jail inspectors found the jail in compliance with 113 state standards, compared with only 51 the year before. The improvements were attributed to better healthcare, more corrections officer and a reduced inmate population.
The jail was not without issues in 2019. An inmate escaped in September and state inspectors noted in their December report that some security issues persist.
Three inmates were released from the jail by mistake, including a murder suspect. And one inmate hanged himself. The one death is more in line with the years prior to 2018, when one or two inmates died each year.
Critics, like civil rights attorney Sarah Gelsolimo, said the county has not demonstrated hard proof that conditions at the jail have substantially changed. Gelsolimo is representing several clients who sued the county in 2019 over the conditions within the downtown facility.
“The jail has not yet actually shown evidence of those reforms that they’ve talked about,” Gelsolimo said, adding: “We continue to get reports from the jail that the conditions are abysmal.”
Here are a few key improvements to the jail in 2019:
Before anyone died at the jail in 2018, jail officials set out to cut costs, including to medical care and food for inmates. They did so while simultaneously adding more inmates as part of an agreement where the city of Cleveland would pay the county for each inmate they housed for the city. The plan would have increased revenue for the county.
In 2019, Cuyahoga County struck a deal with MetroHealth to have the hospital system run the jail’s entire medical operation. MetroHealth and the county split healthcare duties at the jail before that. The deal cost the county $42 million. MetroHealth took over operations at the jail on Oct. 31.
Several high-level staff changes were made in 2019. Cuyahoga County Sheriff Cliff Pinkney resigned in May.
The county hired new jail director Ronda Gibson in April. State jail inspectors noted Gibson’s cooperation and willingness to make necessary changes in several monthly inspection reports. Her predecessor, Ken Mills, is facing criminal charges for negligently operating the jail, making it unsafe, according to special prosecutor’s with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. Mills has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A new warden, Gregory Croucher, was hired in July. His predecessor, Eric Ivey, pleaded guilty in August to ordering jail officer’s body cameras turned off during a death investigation.
Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish hired former Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason as his chief-of-staff in June. Mason devoted his first few months on the job to working on issues at the jail.
Longtime jail supervisor Ken Kochevar was hired in August as a consultant. Kochevar worked at the county jail for four decades before being laid off in order to make room for Mills’ hiring in 2015.
The U.S. Marshals report cited the overpopulated jail as one of the main issues at the jail in 2018, when it was so crowded that inmates, including some who were pregnant, slept on mats on the floor.
Mason after his June hiring met several times with Cuyahoga County Public Defender Mark Stanton and then-Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Administrative Judge John Russo in an attempt to try and find a way to release some 500 inmates being held in the jail on low-level, non-violent felonies.
That plan fell through, but the trio agreed to look at inmates on a case-by-case basis to see if they could release more inmates on bond with GPS ankle monitors. Since then, the jail’s population reduced to record-low levels.
In November, the population dropped to 1,762 inmates, below its capacity of 1,765, for the first time since the jail was expanded 20 years ago.
Another key issue at the jail at the beginning of 2019 revolved around the understaffing of corrections officers, and their low pay.
Understaffing led to low morale. Officers were forced to work overtime with little notice and inmates were being placed on forced lockdowns for hours at a time.
The U.S. Marshals report said 575 officers were working near the end of 2018 and that it needed about 100 more officers. As of Nov. 15 the jail had 696 officers.
State inspectors noted in a November report that forced lockdowns decreased substantially during the weekdays but still persist during weekends.
New corrections officers began 2019 making $15.40 per hour, making them among the lowest-paid in Ohio. The Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the union that represents corrections officers, in May struck a deal with the county on a drastic pay increase. New corrections officers now make $18.48 as their starting wage.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in June ordered sweeping changes to the way the state oversees county jails as a response to what he called the “crisis” at the Cuyahoga County Jail.
State inspectors prior to the U.S. Marshals report found only minor issues with the jail. DeWine hired eight new jail inspectors and a nurse to conduct jail inspections. The state previously had six inspectors for more than 300 jails statewide.
In an unprecedented move, he ordered monthly inspections of the Cuyahoga County Jail, instead of once every year.