But an inmate’s suspicious death at the Western Correctional Institution is raising troubling questions about practices there and whether the prison’s staff violated regulations in a deliberate attempt to cover up what went wrong.
The inmate, Ifeanyi A. Iko, 51, got into a violent confrontation with correctional officers April 30. By the end of that day, he was dead. The state medical examiner determined that he died of asphyxiation and ruled his death a homicide.
State officials will say little about the events surrounding Iko’s death because it is under investigation.
But accounts that The Sun has obtained from inmate witnesses, a review of hundreds of pages of correctional department policies, a tape of a 911 ambulance call and interviews with correctional experts and others paint a disturbing picture.
These accounts indicate that:
Prison policy requires that the staff should have washed Iko’s face of the spray and given him fresh air and medical attention as quickly as possible after he was restrained. The regulations say further that a mask “shall be removed … if any difficulty in breathing is observed.” Inmate witnesses say that Iko appeared unconscious as officers moved him in a wheelchair from one building to another and that there was a mask covering his face.
“We believe he was dead when he left that prison,” said Gary C. Adler, a Washington attorney who is representing Iko’s family. “From the information that we have now, it appears that numerous rules and procedures were not followed, both in the treatment of Ifeanyi and in the steps taken after his death.”
If Iko had been dead before he was removed from the prison, officials should have restricted access to the area where he died, preserved all physical evidence and taken special steps to monitor who handled the evidence. Those steps are not required when an inmate dies outside a prison.
Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the department’s internal investigative unit was notified of Iko’s death almost immediately, as is required in all inmate deaths.
He said the scene was secured for those investigators to examine. But he was unable to say whether the procedures spelled out for handling deaths that occur inside a prison were followed that day.
In their initial public statements about Iko’s death, state officials said that he was found motionless in a cell and that prison staff made every effort to revive him.
“Part of the investigation will certainly include what happened in the moments after [cardio-pulmonary resuscitation] was administered,” Vernarelli said.
Inquiry under way
For now, state officials will say almost nothing about what happened on the day Iko, a Nigerian immigrant, died.
“The facts will all come out in the investigation,” promised Frank C. Sizer Jr., commissioner of the Maryland Division of Correction. “I have never operated to try to conceal things.”
But while state officials aren’t commenting, key details were pieced together from written accounts of inmate witnesses and from other sources familiar with the medium-security prison in Cresaptown.
Information provided by inmates was used only if it was given on the record and by more than one inmate, or was corroborated by other, independent sources.
The events leading to Iko’s death began when Iko got into a fight with his cellmate in WCI’s segregation unit, according to accounts of several inmate witnesses.
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The segregation unit houses inmates who have been separated from the general inmate population for administrative, disciplinary or other reasons, and their privileges are severely restricted.
After their fight, Iko and his cellmate were put in separate “cool down” isolation cells.
The next day, Iko refused to put his arms through a cell door “feed slot” so he could be handcuffed and moved to a cell in a “special observation” housing unit for psychological evaluation.
Jason R. Bell, an inmate who was four cells down from Iko, reported seeing through a crack in his cell door the prison’s chief psychologist, Dr. Janet Hendershot, and a high-ranking corrections officer outside Iko’s cell around 1:30 p.m.
Sizer, in an interview, later confirmed that Hendershot was on the tier that day and had wanted Iko moved for evaluation.
“They just kept talking to him, telling him they just wanted to help, reassuring him that no harm would come to him,” Bell wrote.
Bell said he then noticed a group of officers gathering in a foyer just outside of the tier. They were putting on riot gear – body armor, helmets, gas masks, shields and batons, he said.
He said a sergeant was videotaping the preparations, which included a lieutenant’s talking about which part of Iko’s body each officer would restrain.
The scene Bell described tracks almost exactly the corrections department’s written protocol for carrying out a “cell extraction” – the forcible removal of an uncooperative inmate from a cell, including the required videotaping.
After warnings to Iko that he would be taken out by force if he did not cooperate, a lieutenant leading the squad emptied a large can of pepper spray into Iko’s feed slot. Then, after a short time, he emptied a second can into the cell.
“I saw Iko’s hands and arms come sticking out of the slot,” Bell wrote. “He was screaming and coughing. They ordered him to turn around, but he never stuck his arms back out.”
After a third can of pepper spray, the tactical team burst into Iko’s cell, according to Bell, who said he was not in a position to see what was happening inside.
“I could hear the sounds of a violent struggle,” Bell said. “I clearly heard Iko scream out, then abruptly go silent. … The smell of pepper spray overwhelmed the entire tier.”
Other inmates also said three cans of pepper spray were used, and they reported gagging from the smell.
Pepper spray’s effects
“Pepper spray” is the more common name for the chemical spray oleoresin capsicum, the oily residue of the cayenne pepper plant. Exposure irritates the skin, eyes and mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and causes extreme discomfort.
An April 2003 U.S. Department of Justice research study on pepper spray says in-custody deaths after the use of pepper spray are almost always determined to have been caused by other factors.
The report noted one such factor as “positional asphyxiation, which may occur when subjects are placed in a prone position, typically handcuffed behind the back, in which breathing becomes more difficult.”
A 1995 research article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology similarly found pepper spray to be relatively safe. But researchers warned that it could contribute to death in cases where other factors such as drug intoxication or a frenzied mental state are present.
As officers took Iko off the tier, he was handcuffed behind his back and had shackles on his feet, according to Matthew Himelright, an inmate in the segregation unit.
“Iko’s head was loosely swaying, and his chest was not visibly moving,” Himelright said. “Nor was there any voluntary movement of Iko’s eyes or shoulders and feet.”
Himelright had been through a cell extraction just two days earlier, on April 28, as correctional officers sought to squelch an inmate protest over what the inmates say are unduly harsh conditions in the segregation unit. He was injured badly enough that day to require medical treatment.
At some point as Iko was being moved, he was placed in a wheelchair and his head was covered with a mesh “spit” mask, a hood designed to protect prison staff from inmates who may spit or bite.
Inmate James E. Bonnett was among several inmates who said they saw Iko in a wheelchair wearing a mask as he was transported to the special observation housing unit.
Bonnett said that he was in a small recreation yard about 2:15 p.m. April 30 when a group of officers came through with someone restrained to a wheelchair. He said he later learned from other inmates it was Iko – “the big Nigerian dude.”
“A blue-type mask was covering the face of the person,” Bonnett wrote. “The limp body had no movement even when bare feet were dragged on … blacktop.”
Vernarelli, the public safety department spokesman, would not comment on whether a mask was used on Iko, saying that is part of the investigation.
He confirmed that “spit masks” are sometimes used at WCI and other correctional facilities in Maryland to protect officers. Correctional department regulations say any mask must be of a type that “merely sets over the head” and is “not restricted around the neck area by any means.”
Prison officials have refused to release videotapes of Iko’s cell extraction and his movement to the special housing unit.
And what happened to Iko after he arrived there – until an ambulance was summoned two hours later, at 4:37 p.m. – is unknown.
Signs of rigor mortis
What is known is that within minutes of leaving the prison grounds, a paramedic reported signs of rigor mortis in Iko and sought and received a doctor’s permission to cease lifesaving efforts as he was being transported to a local hospital, according to a tape of 911 transmissions.
The paramedic, who declined to comment when contacted, never actually saw Iko inside the prison.
A separate ambulance staffed by emergency medical technicians arrived first, and the paramedic waited outside the prison’s gates for the EMTs to bring out Iko, the 911 tape shows.
At least two inmates claim to have been in the special observation housing unit during the time Iko was there, but both have since been transferred to other prisons for undisclosed reasons.
In letters to The Sun, the two inmates said they did not want to speak publicly about what they saw or heard because they fear retaliation from correctional officers.
Other inmates housed in the segregation unit voiced similar fears of retaliation but said they were willing to take that risk to ensure that Iko’s death was not covered up.
Grand jury possible
After learning in late May of the medical examiner’s decision to classify Iko’s death a homicide, state corrections officials asked state police and Allegany County State’s Attorney Michael O. Twigg’s office to assist with their investigation.
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The two outside agencies have played a limited role. The corrections department’s internal investigators have remained in charge of gathering facts and conducting interviews of inmates and prison staff.
Twigg said that he expects the internal investigators to complete their work in the coming weeks and that he will determine then how to proceed. As state’s attorney, he will decide if criminal charges should be filed or the facts taken to a grand jury for further investigation and review.
Homicides in U.S. prisons are relatively rare, said Joe Weedon of the American Correctional Association.
Of 3,100 deaths of inmates in custody last year, only 24 were ruled homicides, Weedon said. The figure includes those who died as a result of inmate-on-inmate violence.
In Maryland, there have been 25 prison homicides since 1997 – nearly all of them a result of inmate-on-inmate violence, according to state corrections officials. Iko’s was the first homicide recorded at WCI.
Weedon said that most states call in outside police agencies to investigate homicides that occur within their prisons.
However, Weedon said that internal investigators are normally contacted whenever any inmate in custody dies. Before a determination that the death was a homicide, “it would typically be handled internally,” he said.
Past complaints
In his last letter to his sister Ada, Iko was optimistic that he would be released this year. He had spent nearly 13 years in prison on a drug conviction and for later assaulting a correctional officer. During that time, he and his wife had divorced and his two children had grown into teenagers.
Iko’s relatives say that he had complained about mistreatment at the hands of officers at WCI in the past.
“He vowed that once he got out, that he would make sure that the prison was investigated,” said his sister, Ada Iko, who lives in Silver Spring.
After learning May 13 of her brother’s death, Ada Iko made several unsuccessful attempts that evening to reach someone at WCI who could tell her what had happened to her brother. When she reached his case manager the next day, Ada Iko said she was alarmed by what he told her: Iko’s body was going to the state anatomy board – which is where corpses are sent to be used for scientific purposes if relatives do not claim them.
But a family friend contacted the medical examiner’s office in Baltimore, and an employee there assured them Iko’s body would not be turned over to the board now that family had come forward.
Gary C. Adler, the family attorney, said the way that state officials have handled Iko’s death was understandably upsetting to the family.
“It’s bad enough that the procedures to notify next-of-kin weren’t followed, and you may be able to blame that as a bureaucratic mistake, but if you add that to their refusal to give any information to the family when they called, and telling them the body was sent to the anatomy board, it just raises further suspicion,” Adler said.
Ada Iko said she is outraged by the circumstances of her brother’s death.
“I don’t want my brother to die for nothing,” Ada Iko said. “I don’t want another family to go through this.”
<!– ART CREDITDOUG KAPUSTIN : SUN STAFF
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTIfeanyi A. Iko had complained of mistreatment at the hands of the staff at the Western Maryland prison known as WCI, near Cumberland.
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ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTIfeanyi A. Iko was divorced from his wife, Loreen Jones. The couple are shown above with their daughter, Christine.
CUTLINE TEXT–> <!– ART CREDITDOUG KAPUSTIN : SUN STAFF
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTThe death of Nigerian immigrant Ifeanyi A. Iko was the first homicide recorded at the Western Correctional Institution. "I clearly heard Iko scream out, then abruptly go silent," a fellow inmate said.
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