The troubled City Justice Center may soon be facing another lawsuit over a detainee death.
Attorney Jack Spooner recently sent a demand letter to acting commissioner of corrections Tammy Ross as well as the jail’s erstwhile director, Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, who is currently on medical leave. In the letter, Spooner says he represents the family of Katrina Kelly, 33, who was found unresponsive at the jail on August 24 and died four days later at Barnes Jewish Hospital. The letter strongly suggests the family intends to sue for wrongful death, saying, “future litigation is planned.”
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In the September 30 letter, Spooner says his firm is investigating Kelly’s death and demands that the jail preserve “all documents, video, records, communications, electronic data, and other tangible information” relevant to Kelly’s death, as well as make available relevant reports and videos by October 7.
Reached for comment, Spooner said, “The letter speaks for itself,” although he added that the jail had not provided the requested materials by Monday’s deadline.
Kelly was in the jail on first-degree murder charges stemming from a shooting that occurred in July in Tower Grove East. Police say that Kelly drove Kyle E. Penton and another man to a restaurant on Gravois Avenue, where Penton and the other suspect fired into a vehicle, killing one passenger and wounding a bystander. She was arrested two weeks later, on August 14.
Ten days after Kelly was booked into the jail, staff found her after she tried to hang herself while alone in her cell. After four days at the hospital, she was declared neurologically dead. Police say her death is currently categorized as suicide, but the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s Force Investigation Unit is investigating the matter.
The city’s Department of Public Safety issued a statement following her death, expressing their condolences to her family, saying, “one death is one too many and the impact of this loss is profoundly felt by all within our community.”
The demand letter signaling a forthcoming lawsuit comes at a particularly perilous time for the city jail. A relatively diverse group of people—from aldermen to activists to criminal defense attorneys—have called for the firing of Clemons-Abdullah, blaming her for the spate of deaths, overdoses, riots and at least one hostage incident at the facility in just over a year.
Clemons-Abdullah went out on leave September 19. Sources tell SLM that she will return next week, though a Fox 2 story indicating her house is currently for sale suggests she may be gone for good. Several aldermen have blasted Mayor Tishaura Jones for the ambiguity surrounding Clemons-Abdullah’s status. City Hall has said they are bound by city ordinance from giving out any details beyond saying she is on medical leave.
Increasing oversight of the jail was a priority of Jones when she took office in 2021. She established the Detention Facility Oversight Board in 2022 as a group of civilians empowered to investigate allegations of wrongdoing at the facility brought to them by detainees and staff.
However, in the past year, numerous members of the oversight board have left, saying that they weren’t being granted the investigative power they needed to actually follow up on complaints. Members were particularly upset by not having access to the facility itself. Police arrested one member, Janis Mensah, for refusing to leave the jail lobby in the wake of a detainee death. In his resignation letter, Mike Milton said that he didn’t think Jones took jail oversight seriously.
While they were members of the board, Mensah and Milton were two of its most outspoken members. Despite their departure, those still on the board share their concerns.
“We have yet to be able to do an investigation of any of the deaths in that facility. And that is a cause of grave concern,” says chairperson Darryl Gray. “We got to know what’s happening in that jail. That’s our job.”
He says that the board has also been keenly interested in meeting with jail “dorm reps,” who are detainees designated to speak for their pods. Gray says they are willing to use subpoenas if that’s what it takes.
