Remembering Tony Lester
Maricopa County Superior Courthouse
Most readers will remember the story of Tony Lester, a 26-year old seriously mentally ill Native American AZ state prisoner who cut his throat in Tucson prison in July 2009. He bled out over the course of at least ten minutes as five AZ Department of Corrections officers stood around and watched without making the slightest effort to render first aid. The family filed a massive lawsuit against the AZ DOC for their failure to act (and for giving Tony the razor in the first place), but the critical part that was lodged against those five officers was dismissed last month. Once I have a copy of Judge Talamante's ruling on that, I'll be writing my own response to him.
Thanks to the work of Wendy Halloran and Channel 12 News at KNPX, those officers actions are at least visible for the rest of the community to see now. The names of the brave and noble AZ Department of Corrections officers watching Tony die are: Orlando Pope, Humberto Hernandez, Rene Barcelo, Dale Brown, and Danielle Pedroso. The judge apparently agreed with experts who said that since these officers couldn't have saved Tony's life if they tried, it's alright that they didn't even bother.
I wonder if five police officers did nothing at an accident scene but film the dying victims, for example, if that kind of abdication of a first-responder's duty to care would have been okay with this judge as well. That's not equal protection under the law if it's acceptable for officers to withhold first aid from a dying prisoner just because they're too freaked out to render it, but it's not alright for a first responder in the community to do so. These peace officers should all lose their AZ POST certification
for their gross neglect of duty - they shouldn't even be allowed to be
security guards for McDonald's: children would end up choking to death
while these idiots record it for Youtube.
Please, after viewing this report, reach out to KPNX at connect@ad.gannett.com
and thank them for caring enough about mentally ill prisoners to air
it. We want them to cover such human rights violations in the prisons
more in the future.
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By Wendy Halloran
KPNX 12 News | azcentral.com
Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:59 PM
Here are the Arizona Department of Corrections' finest at work...
What follows is the argument that the lawyers made defending the inaction of these officers to Channel 12 News before the above video was released - presumably this was what they pitched to Judge David Talamante, who fell for it and threw the case out.
I wonder if the good Dr. Harvey W.
Meislin, the Director of the Arizona
Emergency Medicine Research Center at the University of Arizona
Health Sciences Center, would have also argued that since Tony was already so far gone, it was even pointless for the emergency personnel to try to help him, and that they should have also shown Tony their indifference as he lay dying....I think not. I suspect
his slant on this was just swayed by the sweet check he'd get for his expert testimony,
and his own faulty presumption that prisoners are not entitled to the
same standard of medical care that the rest of us are. That's certainly not someone I want in charge of teaching our next generation either the science or the ethics of emergency medical care - for which he receives my tax dollars....
--------------------
From:
David Cantelme [mailto:David@cantelaw.com]
Sent:
Friday, February 22, 2013 9:18 AM
To:
Halloran, Wendy
Subject:
Inmate Anthony Lester and Arizona Department of Corrections
Dear
Wendy,
I
understand that you are doing a follow-up on Inmate Anthony Lester
and the response of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) after
Inmate Lester’s cellmate notified ADC officers that he was
bleeding. As you know, my law firm represents the State of Arizona
and ADC in the lawsuit brought by Inmate Lester's mother. I am
available for comment, as is Aaron Brown, my law partner. In case we
do not connect, here are some points that should be conveyed to the
public to make sure it has all the facts:
Plaintiffs
could not produce any evidence indicating that the actions of the ADC
Officers in responding to Inmate Anthony Lester’s injuries in any
way fell below their standard of care or that they in any way caused
or contributed to Inmate Lester’s death. Accordingly, Superior
Judge David Talamante granted judgment for the State of Arizona on
the claim that ADC Officers failed to render proper aid to Inmate
lester.
Sometime
before 7:35 p.m. on the evening of July 11, 2010, Inmate Lester’s
right carotid artery and right internal and external jugular vein
were completely severed while he was in his cell. These wounds would
have caused immediate significant blood loss. As Dr. Terrence
O’Keefe, the emergency treating surgeon, indicated during his
deposition, the blood exiting the neck wounds would have initially
been visibly pulsating (arterial wound) and briskly flowing (jugular
wound) out of the wound. There is no evidence indicating that any of
the first responders observed Mr. Lester actively bleeding from his
neck wounds.
Moreover,
the treating paramedics placed a gauze bandage over Mr. Lester’s
neck wound and the bandage did not immediately saturate with blood.
The video recording of Mr. Lester shows at its first footage that he
was unconscious and in profound hypovolemic shock, which would have
resulted from severe blood loss. Additionally, Mr. Lester’s left
arm was in a decorticate posture, which is indicative of possible
brain damage.
All
this indicates that, before the ADC Officers arrived at the scene,
Inmate Lester’s body had lost too much of his blood supply to allow
him to survive. At that point, there was little anyone could do to
save his life. While en route to UMC, Mr. Lester went into cardiac
arrest because of hypovolemic shock.
The
ADC Officers that responded to the emergency involving Mr. Lester
immediately summoned Tucson Fire paramedics, which were located
directly across the street from the prison grounds, and, by all
accounts, appear to have done everything possible to assist in
transporting Mr. Lester to UMC so that he could receive advanced
medical care. Once Mr. Lester arrived at UMC, physicians performed an
emergency ED thoracotomy followed by open cardiac massage. He was
placed on rapid transfusion protocol and received multiple units of
blood products, all to no avail. Mr. Lester was then transferred to
the operating room for operative intervention for the thoracotomy and
the neck wound. Mr. Lester’s neck wounds, including his internal
right carotid artery and jugular vein were ligated. However, Mr.
Lester was highly coagulopathic and continued to bleed from his
wounds. Despite the heroic efforts of the trauma team at UMC, Mr.
Lester's life could not be saved.
The
response made by the ADC Officers was reviewed by Dr. Harvey W.
Meislin, who is board certified in Emergency Medicine, is a Professor
with tenure in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University
of Arizona, College of Medicine, and is the Director of the Arizona
Emergency Medicine Research Center at the University of Arizona
Health Sciences Center.
Had
Judge Talamante not thrown out this claim, we would have called Dr.
Meislin to the stand and he would have testified that ADC employees
responded reasonably and appropriately to the emergency on July 11,
2010, and met the applicable standard of care in providing first aid
by doing everything reasonably possible to summon paramedics so that
Mr. Lester could be immediately transported to definitive care at
UMC. Mr. Lester’s survivability was dependent upon transportation
and arrival to the trauma center where definitive management of his
wounds could and would take place.
Dr. Meislin would have testified
that under the specific circumstances of this case, application of
pressure to Mr. Lester’s neck wounds was not called for and would
not have served any useful purpose. Dr. Meislin was also of the
opinion that no act or alleged omission by ADC employees in
responding to Mr. Lester’s emergency caused or contributed to his
death. Thank you for your attention to these facts.
David
J. Cantelme
Cantelme
& Brown, P.L.C.
A
Professional Liability Corporation
3003
N. Central Avenue, Suite 600
*Please
note our new address*
Phoenix,
Arizona 85012
djc@cb-attorneys.com
Telephone:(602)
200-0125
-------------------------------------
Finally, the link below will take you to the full video report on Tony's death - follow it, and please thank Wendy and KPNX for caring enough to bring this to light...
How We Did It
By Wendy Halloran
12 News | azcentral.com
Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:59 PM
12 News investigative reporter Wendy Halloran has been asking
questions for more than two years about what happened to Tony Lester.
Halloran’s public records’ requests to the Arizona Department of
Corrections began in the fall of 2010, just months after Lester died. In
June 2011, she requested a copy of a video that captured how
corrections officers responded when they found Lester bleeding in his
cell. ADOC denied the request, citing the privacy interests of Lester’s
surviving family members, who had filed a wrongful death lawsuit
alleging officers stood by and and did not render first aid.
In July 2012, Halloran renewed her request for the video. It was again denied.
In September, Halloran tried again with the permission of Tony
Lester’s family. ADOC denied her request a third time. Later that month,
Halloran was allowed to watch the video at the law firm representing
the state. She then requested the first 12 minutes of the video that
showed how the officers responded. She was again denied.
12 News filed a special action in Superior Court in October asking
that a judge review the matter. The following month, ADOC was ordered to
produce the video to the station. The judge found ADOC wrongfully
denied Halloran’s public records request, and the department agreed to
pay more than $26,000 in attorneys’ fees to the station.
Watch Wendy Halloran’s previous reports on Tony Lester:
•
12 News investigation leads to viewer outrage over inmate's suicide
•
Arizona inmate's family watches his death video
•
Arizona inmate suicide: Failure to aid, Part 2
•
Arizona inmate suicide: Did correction officers fail to administer aid?
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