By Dee Riggs
Wenatchee World
WENATCHEE — Jail staffers described a sweating, yelling prisoner with exceptional strength as they try to subdue him on June 29.
The prisoner, Jesse Avina Morales, 21, of Wenatchee, died that day in what the Chelan County coroner called the result of excited delirium with hypertensive heart disease as a contributing factor.
In reports made public Tuesday, Wenatchee police detectives list details of how the jail staff said they treated Avina Morales during a 16-minute struggle inside the Chelan County Regional Justice Center.
The reports did not address how the efforts by jail staffers to subdue Avina Morales might have affected his health.
Some medical experts use the term excited delirium to describe an unexplained death that happens when someone’s vital signs shut down after a fight-or-flight incident.
Sgt. Jim West, spokesman for the Wenatchee Police Department, said Tuesday that “the jail staff did everything they could, well within reason, to help this guy.”
He said detectives “closed the case because we found nothing criminal to require further investigation.”
He added that “if our police officers were doing what they did, it would have been within our policies and procedures in attempting to restrain him.”
Avina Morales’s family has declined to talk about his death.
Full story: Jail staff ‘did everything they could’ during struggle with inmate
Jail staff struggle with inmate (close view) from Wenatchee World on Vimeo.