A man in Alabama froze to death inside a county jail after he was placed inside a walk-in freezer, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
The family of Anthony “Tony” Mitchell claims that more than a dozen jail staff members in Walker County allegedly mistreated him and then conspired to cover it up.
Mitchell dealt with “hellish” conditions inside the jail for around two weeks before his death following his arrest last month, his grieving mother, Margaret Mitchell, argues in the suit.
“While Tony languished naked and dying of hypothermia in the early morning hours of Jan. 26 and his chances for survival trickled away, numerous corrections officers and medical staff wandered over to his open cell door to spectate and be entertained by his condition,” the complaint read.
The lawsuit speculates that Mitchell, 33, was held in the jail naked due to the facility’s suicide watch policy after being tased by guards as promised to a relative by a Walker County sheriff’s officer after Mitchell was arrested.
It also states that Mitchell appeared to be strapped down to a restraint chair and placed in the “jail kitchen’s walk-in freezer or a similar frigid environment for an extended time” as some sort of twisted punishment.
Mitchell was arrested on Jan. 12 after authorities responded to a call from a concerned family member. According to his relatives, he battled drug addiction and issues with his physical and mental health.
“The caller stated that Anthony ‘Tony’ Mitchell had made statements to them that raised concern, insinuating that Mitchell may harm himself or others. Deputies from our Patrol Division responded to the scene to perform a welfare check on the individual,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release the next day.
When deputies arrived, Mitchell allegedly fired a gun at them once before law enforcement retreated to the woods near his house. He was later taken into custody.
While an autopsy has not been released, “it is clear that Tony’s death was wrongful, the result of horrific, malicious abuse and mountains of deliberate indifference,” the lawsuit states.
The Mitchell’s family lawyer, attorney Jon Goldfarb, slammed the jail in a statement to The Post. “The evidence of abuse would have been buried with Tony Mitchell but for the bravery of a lone corrections officer who made videos of what really happened to Tony and shared one of them. And they fired her for exposing the truth of this abuse.”
