Michael A. McDaniel was not perfect.
But he and other inmates at the center of recent barbaric encounters with Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction corrections officers deserved far more than we, the state, gave them.
They deserve a prison system that is humane, and that means it needs reform.
McDaniel’s sister says he was trying to get his life back together, but the Columbus resident stabbed another man, according to news stories based on a police report.
The Navy veteran pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was supposed to spend 16 months in prison.
Instead, the 55-year-old ended up with what amounted to a death sentence.
The prison system fired seven employees involved in McDaniel’s February death at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient.
That’s not enough.
His case and others point to the fact that the state prison system needs to be overhauled to ensure prisoners live long enough to be rehabilitated.
The state should provide body cameras to corrections officers, and they should be required to wear them, but that is only the beginning.
There must be more transparency about how cases are handled, accountability when things are not done right and work to train and recruit officers.
This won’t be easy. We know that.
In a tight labor market, the state’s prison system has 900 unfilled corrections officer positions. The shortage means officers are often overworked.
That’s no excuse for what happened to McDaniel, and it does not mean the department cannot take corrective actions to prevent more tragedies.
Right now, prisons practically self-police and are their own judges and juries.
There is a prisons department chief inspector, but each prison has an internal process for reviewing uses of force.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol relies on the state to notify it of deaths, rapes, assaults, and suspected criminal activity on state property or by state employees.
The prison system is not exactly forthcoming.
Initial reports about McDaniel’s death indicated simply that he died after a struggle with officers.
The Dispatch reported Feb. 7:
“Two female officers were injured while attempting to remove Michael A. McDaniel, 55, from his cell and he became combative on Saturday afternoon, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Both officers, whom officials said sustained serious injuries, were treated at a hospital, and later released.
McDaniel declined a medical evaluation at the prison infirmary and later collapsed, officials said.
He was taken to Mount Carmel Grove City, where he died late Saturday afternoon, officials said.”
That’s not “exactly” the way things went down.
Security footage and records obtained by The Dispatch revealed that the encounter was far more serious and that lies were told.
Corrections Officer Sarah Cline and her partner Kristi Judd removed McDaniel from his cell after he had a profanity laced exchange with Cline.
McDaniel was taken behind a stairwell out of sight of camera. A fight broke out and McDaniel and the officers toppled to the floor.
Several members of the prison’s staff arrived and took McDaniel out of the housing unit. Along the way, the handcuffed and compliant man was shoved down, tackled headfirst into a snow bank and pushed to the sidewalk.
McDaniel fell another 10 times before he and at least a half dozen officers reach the prison clinic.
A report found that instead of a standard check, nurse Vera Pokuaa, examined McDaniel less than two minutes before dismissing him.
Fellow nurse Jamie Dukes was among the seven employees fired. She was accused of falsifying a form saying McDaniel refused medical treatment.
McDaniel is one of two inmates who have died recently after vicious run-ins with officers and apparently insufficient or neglectful medical care at Ohio’s Correctional Reception Center.
Dewey McVay, Jr. died 18 days after officer Clinton Woodard-Hinton and Tory Miller, an activity therapy supervisor, told investigators they experienced “tunnel vision” while delivering hammer-fist blows to subdue McVay on Dec. 2, 2019.
Witnesses say McVay banged his own head against a wall, twice while handcuffed, but documents show that he had bruises on his legs and knees, knots above each eye and lacerations on his face.
McVay told a nurse making rounds on Dec. 15 that he thought he might have the flu. He was offered cough syrup. He was unresponsive by lunchtime and prison staff called an ambulance.
He died five days later at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center on Dec. 20. The coroner’s office determined the cause of death as blunt force injuries to the head.
Several inmates have been seriously injured, including Dakota White. The then 16-year-old was on constant suicide watch at the center when he was pepper-sprayed and left for nearly three hours without being cleaned up.
Andrew Potee has filed a federal lawsuit over a confrontation with officers he says left him knocked out and bloodied.
The problem is not only at the reception center.
The state will pay 21-year-old Seth Fletcher $17.5 million after he was paralyzed by officers at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution.
Fletcher complained that he could no longer feel or move his legs after being knocked to the ground on April 2, 2020.
Instead of taking his complaints seriously, said the State Patrol, guards repeatedly dropped the 21-year-old and poured water in his nose and mouth when he couldn’t take a drink.
One of the officers in Fletcher’s case wrote in a text message after learning of the severity of Fletcher’s injures.
“… the dude I broke his nose is now paralyzed with a broken neck, and they say his face looks like he had been dropped and dragged through concrete, LMAO,” Garrett Osbon typed. “It feels good to know that I played a small part in paralyzing a cho (child molester), LMAO.”
Fletcher’s lawyer says Fletcher was 18 when he made a videotape with his younger girlfriend. A court sentenced Fletcher to two years for pandering sexually-oriented material involving minors in Fulton County.
The officer and the prison system’s inadequate medical system virtually sentenced Fletcher to life in a wheelchair.
None of this is acceptable in Ohio.
“I’m really angry, pissed, upset and disappointed,” Jada McDaniel, McDaniel’s sister told the Dispatch in September. “I’m sad that my brother lost his life in a facility that was supposed to rehabilitate him. Instead, he got killed.”
She is right.
The state has a responsibility to make sure inmates are taken care of while in our custody, giving them every chance to be rehabilitated.
Inmates clearly are not perfect — who among us is? Mistakes will happen, but Ohio deserves a Department of Rehabilitation and Correction that is humane and far less flawed.
