Parties in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Cherokee County last year have reached a settlement, which will likely result in a monetary payout from the county’s insurance company.
"The parties engaged in good faith discovery and explored the issues. When the truth of the situation fully emerged, the parties worked together to resolve the matter,” plaintiff attorney W. Ellis Boyle told the Cherokee Scout. “The family is getting some measure of justice such as the civil justice system has to offer.”
Boyle and attorney Edward Winslow Taylor filed a lawsuit alleging that Cherokee County detention officers failed to follow the department’s standard operating procedure requiring them to medically evaluate at-risk inmates before confining them to jail. The lawsuit was filed in federal court last year on behalf of the administrator of the estate of Joshua Shane Long.
Deputies arrested Long on the evening of July 11, 2018, after receiving a call about a man causing a disturbance. A deputy found him walking around on Tater Creek Road, according to the lawsuit, which says Long was shirtless, yelling and cursing.
The lawsuit says the deputy noticed Long place an object in his mouth and drink a cup of water before handcuffing him. The arresting officer and another deputy each asked Long if he had swallowed drugs and whether he wanted medics to evaluate him, both to which he reportedly said, “No.”
The lawsuit accuses officers of failing to notify medical personnel about their suspicions regarding drugs in Long’s bloodstream. It also alleges that detention officers at the jail later failed to conduct a health screening and appraisal that may have alerted them to drugs in Long’s system.
Compounding issues, the lawsuit further alleges that a lack of documentation related to Long’s arrest suggests that someone tampered with jail records.
Jail officials found Long unresponsive in his cell about five and a half hours after his arrest. The lawsuit says he wasn’t flown to a hospital until 12:40 a.m. July 12, 2018, because a magistrate judge had set a secured bond and didn’t sign a release order waiving it until after receiving authorization from the district attorney’s office.
Long was pronounced dead at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., at 1:21 a.m.
“The bond issue delayed his departure by 30-45 minutes,” the lawsuit says. “The autopsy results showed that Mr. Long died of methamphetamine overdose. If he had received proper and timely medical evaluation and treatment, this condition was treatable, and his death was avoidable.”
The District Attorney’s Office asked federal authorities to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against individuals involved in Long’s arrest and detention. The investigation became part of a year-long probe regarding several allegations of civil rights violations at the Cherokee County Detention Center. Ultimately, federal authorities determined that no criminal acts occurred on the part of local law enforcement officials.
Cherokee County is insured through the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners’ Risk Management Pools, which covers 71 counties throughout the state. At the time of Long’s death, the county had a coverage limit of $2 million per occurrence, which would apply to this settlement.
Commissioners voted to increase the county’s coverage limit to $6 million per occurrence earlier this year, following a $4.6 million civil judgement in a case regarding past practices of local social services personnel.
Attorneys in the Long case filed a notice of settlement with the court on Sept. 20. They are expected to submit a motion outlining terms of the agreement for judicial approval within thirty days.
“We heard the attorneys were in mediation and discussing a settlement, but we have not received any agreements in writing at this time," Sheriff Derrick Palmer said.