Callaway County, sheriff’s office, sued over inmate’s suicide
The family of a man who killed himself in the Callaway County Jail want to take the deputies, and the doctor who saw him before his suicide, to court.
A wrongful death lawsuit filed in Boone County names the county, its sheriff’s office, 23 individual employees at the office, MU Health and Dr. Tahir Rahman in connection to Cody Ousley’s 2014 death. Ousley died from an “anoxic brain injury” following a hanging in the Callaway County Jail. Deputies found Ousley hanging in his cell on June 6, 2014, a bed sheet tied to an uncovered air vent in the cell’s ceiling. He died seven days later at University Hospital, while in coma.
The suit claims deputies were negligent in leaving Ousley unattended for as long as they did the day he killed himself. Ousley had tried hanging himself several days prior, according to the petition from attorney Anthony Laramore. On May 27, Ousley tried tying a bed sheet around a rail on the jail’s second floor catwalk, but it came untied as he jumped off the catwalk itself. An inmate stopped him as he went back to try it a second time.
Dr. Rahman, a university psychiatrist, would later treat Ousley when he arrived at the hospital that day. Two days later, on May 29, Dr. Rahman diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder, and gave a directive to deputies.
“Due to his antisocial diagnosis, he will be prone to making threats to harm others and making suicidal gestures in times of crisis or perceived crisis,” Dr. Rahman wrote, according to the lawsuit. “Mr. Ousley should be held accountable for his actions. Lastly, it is strongly recommended that he not be returned for further inpatient hospitalization as this will only serve to reinforce negative, manipulative behavior.”
Sheriff Dennis Crane did not respond to an after-hours message seeking comment on the lawsuit.
Cody’s parents, father Williams and mother Catherine, and daughter, described in the suit as R.O. brought the lawsuit in May 2016. The petition names 23 employees individually, including Sheriff Crane, for their parts in Ousley’s hanging in June 2014. Deputies should have checked on Ousley every fifteen minutes, per jail policy, according to the petition. However, no deputy physically checked on him between 1:01 p.m. and 2:42 p.m. – the time a deputy took Ousley down from the vent in his cell. The petition claims medical help was further delayed by a deputy shackling Ousley’s hands and feet after removing him from the noose and another deputy delaying the ambulance as he retrieved Ousley’s booking sheet.
A Fulton Sun report says Ousley was booked into the Callaway County Jail on May 24, 2014 for fraudulent use of a credit/debit device and possession of a defaced firearm, among other suspected crimes.
