By Austin Huguelet
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — The city’s top public safety official defended the troubled downtown jail on this week, saying he had no evidence that the embattled warden was to blame for any of the recent deaths there.
Also this week, one of the jail’s harshest critics resigned their post on the jail’s civilian oversight board.
Public Safety Director Charles Coyle told an aldermanic committee that the majority of the 15 deaths at the jail since 2020 have been from natural causes or accidental overdoses, which he cast as a sad but unsurprising parallel to the health disparities and substance abuse issues in the communities detainees come from.
Many people are coming into the City Justice Center, across South Tucker Boulevard from City Hall, in bad shape, he said. Some haven’t seen a doctor in years before they are incarcerated. And an estimated 30%-50% have some type of dependency, he said.
“We’re having people come in with serious health issues,” he said.
Coyle added that the count of four suicides in those four years was better than average for jails across the state.
Coyle’s comments marked the latest defense of Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah as she weathers withering criticism from advocates and aldermen after a rough few months.
At least four detainees have died since mid-August. A corrections officer was taken hostage by inmates for several hours before police intervened. Acute staffing shortages are getting worse — less than half of correctional officer positions are filled. And there have been rising concerns from advocates and attorneys that inmates are being held without access to showers, hot food and other basic necessities.
But on Wednesday, Coyle brushed off much of that, casting critics as mostly clueless.
“People say all kinds of things in public and they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about,” he said.
Clemons-Abdullah, he said, has actually done quite a bit of work to improve the jail. She’s overseeing millions of dollars in renovations to fix broken cell locks that led to a riot in 2021, and ramping up security to keep drugs out, he said. And the city has been working to shore up staffing by increasing starting pay for correctional officers and offering a $3,500 hiring bonus.
“She has made the place safer,” he said.
Alderman Bret Narayan, the public safety committee chair, said the committee will continue to dig into the jail until members are satisfied.
Jail board member resigns
Earlier Wednesday, in a letter to oversight board leaders and city officials, board vice chair Janis Mensah said Clemons-Abdullah should resign, the jail should close and the mayor should be “ashamed.”
Mensah, who uses the pronoun they, has been particularly critical of the administration and dogged in efforts to look into problems. After two detainees died within two weeks in August, Mensah went to the jail to investigate and refused to leave until police arrested and forcibly removed them.
Mensah, like some other board members, had been serving beyond the term, and was seen as unlikely to be reappointed.
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