It’s no fun having to visit your kid in jail. It’s even less fun when instead of seeing him, you get locked into a steel-doored concrete room and forgotten.
Farad Polk had been visiting his son, who’s awaiting trial (drugs), every Saturday at Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Even innocent visitors quickly learn they’re unlikely to be treated well when they visit a jail, and the younger Polk’s been locked up for thirteen months. So it was two hours before Farad Polk understood he wasn’t just being jerked around. Something was wrong.
Polk came to the jail Saturday evening, went through the jail’s rituals to make sure you’re not concealing guns, drugs, etc.. His son had been moved to a new area. Polk was told by a guard to go straight ahead, then turn right. He did, and found a visiting room with an open door. He went in and the door closed behind him.
Where Polk was trapped. Photo released by Cook County Sheriff’s Department.
Ho hum. Then, nothing. Eventually, “I’m like ‘this ain’t right, this ain’t happening.’ So as I turned around to buzz out, there ain’t no buzzer. No buzzer, no intercom, just a room,” Polk said.
Really not right. Hours passed. More hours. Polk didn’t know the 8×8 room he was in was a maximum-security visiting room not used on the weekends. (Why? Because people who visit people in maximum security don’t have jobs and can easily visit during the week, is that your theory, Cook County?) It was being renovated – security cameras were to be installed. The door had been left open by a contract worker, maybe flimsily propped in some manner, it’s unclear. Locked now.
Polk yelled. He pounded on the door. He kicked the door. He tried yelling under the door. Nothing. There was no water or food or any means of communication in the room.
After a while it was Sunday. Sometimes Polk could hear the voices of guards talking, but no matter how he hollered, no one came. You’d think that if he could hear them, they could hear him, but as SorryWatch has noted before, in some places the staff tend to ignore cries of “Let me out!” and “Help!” and “Why am I here? I don’t belong here! There’s been a terrible mistake!”
Hour 32.
Early Monday morning Polk, exhausted and dehydrated, figured out how to call for help via an inanimate object. He broke the sprinkler head in the ceiling.
A sprinkler head that probably never got anybody out of jail, but might still save a life.
Those things are tough. Polk cut himself badly. But he broke it, water poured in, a fire alarm went off, and the fire department showed up.
Then? First? Polk was handcuffed.
But interrogation produced his sickeningly plausible story, and Polk was taken to the hospital to get stitches in his thumb. No longer in cuffs, I assume.
Cara Smith, executive director of the jail, was notified, and rushed to the hospital to apologize to Polk. It was 3 a.m. Monday. She said he “couldn’t have been more gracious.” When the docs were through, she gave him a ride back to the jail parking lot to get his car.
“We’re tremendously sorry for what this man went through,’’ she told the press later. She called breaking the sprinkler “brilliant.” She said they were looking into what went wrong. She used the word “bizarre.”
“Anything like this is unacceptable. We’re tremendously sorry for what this man went through.” She said, “Multiple things obviously failed including a contractor leaving a door open while they did work in our jail. It was a perfect storm of circumstances that led to this horrible incident.”
I’m calling this a pretty good apology. Smith apologized in person, as quickly as she could. She didn’t blame Polk. Although she had no problem throwing the contractor under the bus. The contractor may have some culpability, but certainly isn’t the only one.
Apparently when Smith visited Polk at the hospital, he accepted her apology. However, apologies are not grants of immunity. Polk has hired a lawyer to sue the jail.
Would you?
Not all sprinklers get to be heroes, but we love them anyway.
That’s a good question.
If we believe that a sincere apology is complete with an attempt at restitution, Smith perhaps should have done more than get up at three a.m. and given a guy a ride. There must be some way to make this right… more ways than to appear on TV and throw a nameless contractor under the bus. Further, there’s potentially a larger issue at stake with this particular jail, and if Polk’s suit is instrumental in peeling back the layers of wrongdoing — well, then I’m all for it. He’s not suing Smith personally, after all.
That being said, I live in a litigious state, so I’m hesitant to say “Go, extraneous lawsuits,” but:
a.) Polk was directed to that room, by someone who’d given him the runaround for two hours. Two. Hours. When they see him every week, as he’s there to see his son? Really?
b.) Polk was ignored — you cannot tell me that he heard voices and no one heard his. Further, they MUST HAVE KNOWN that that room wasn’t done, and no one even checked? Further, when you visit inmates you must check out and check in at a front desk… So, there’s the niggling issue that someone must have known, maybe thought to give him more crap – and then forgot. A dangerous game by power-mad guards? Who knows.
b.) he was handcuffed. I deliberately didn’t check any links, so I don’t know the man’s color, but his very young son is in on a drug charge? His seizure for standing-near-trouble-whilst-a-person-of-color is a high possibility, no? So, there’s potentially dodgy racist-based reasoning to deal with.
Now I’ve read all the links, and read that he went to the jail this past weekend, and couldn’t bring himself to go in — so he’s in fear. He’s seen how easily him being innocent can turn into being guilty. He’s afraid, and I don’t blame him.
Lawsuits don’t fix that, though.
Um, I don’t think Mr. Polk had been given the run-around for two hours before being directed down the hallway. I THINK it was two hours from when he entered the maximum security waiting room that he realized that it wasn’t the usual scenario. Of course that could mean that every other time, it took 1 1/2 hours of waiting before he’d see his son. But absolutely right about everyone getting signed in and out. In fact I’d go further, and wager that even though the camera in the waiting room was disabled, there were plenty in the corridor which would have showed him walking down and either turning into the room or disappearing before the next camera feed. He should absolutely sue. Biggest impetus for change.
The story made me think of Daniel Chong, the student who was “forgotten” for five days in DEA detention, also without having been charged with a crime (Oh, and no agent was ever disciplined).
I think you’re right, Rebecca.
SorryWatch did cover Daniel Chong’s story too. As “Dude! Who said you could hang out in our cell, wearing our handcuffs?”
https://sorrywatch.com/dude-who-said-you-could-hang-out-in-our-cell-wearing-our-handcuffs/
Here’s the thing: Smith responded well. She’s the executive director of the jail, so yay. But next week someone else could be executive director.
I think it’d be a good thing if the whole group of people managing the jail (under the Sheriff, I suppose) were worried about lawsuits. If they didn’t just think they could get a decent person to apologize and talk to the press.
Smith called it a “perfect storm.” Lots of things went wrong (not just the contractor leaving the door in the wrong position). So lots of things need to be fixed. Maybe the lawsuit will encourage that.
Hell yeah, I’d sue them. He’s lucky he didn’t die in there.