POMEROY, WA – The Seattle Times reports that Garfield County has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the parents and young daughter of a 36-year-old man who killed himself while detained in a dungeonlike basement cell in the county courthouse and will shut down its jail, which was constructed in 1901. Kyle Lara was left in solitary confinement after being arrested for suspicion of domestic violence on March 23, 2022.
Lara had been in jail for three weeks, and the Seattle Times says that in a lawsuit filed this year by his family, officials placed him in intolerable conditions and ignored signs that he was intent on self-harm.
The claim alleged that Lara’s body wasn’t found for 18 hours and that jail officials “twice served food to Mr. Lara’s corpse,” the Seattle Times reports.
For more on this story by Mike Carter – Seattle Times Staff Reporter, go to: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/wa-county-to-close-jail-and-pay-2-5m-to-family-after-mans-suicide/
Photos courtesy of the Galanda Boardman Law Firm & Seattle Times.
