After a Mecklenburg County, N.C., jail inmate died Thursday — the fourth to die in two months — prisoner advocates and families of the deceased are calling for reform, the Charlotte Observer reports. Jerome Thompson, 52, jumped from the second floor of a general housing pod Wednesday around 10:30 p.m., the sheriff’s office said. He suffered a fractured skull and was taken to a hospital for surgery. Thompson, in jail on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, died the next morning. “The most basic duty of jail officials is to keep people who are in custody and awaiting trial safe and alive. At that, Mecklenburg County is failing,” said Susanna Birdsong of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The deaths of four people in two months is a clear pattern and an urgent crisis that requires full and immediate intervention from the State Bureau of Investigation.”
Elizabeth Forbes, who heads the criminal justice reform group NC CURE, said she is disturbed by the number of recent deaths inside the Mecklenburg jail. The jail, which has about 1,900 beds, registered one death a year from 2014 through 2017. “Those statistics are extremely high,” Forbes said. “Why? … I’m absolutely convinced a review of these deaths should by done by an outside agency.” Barbara Allen, whose son died in the jail last week, agrees. Lavarchio Allen called family members from the jail on July 4, wishing them a happy holiday, Allen said. He died the next morning of undetermined causes. “Regardless of what he did and what he was, he was a human being,” Allen said. “He was a son. He was a father.” Allen was in jail on charges of breaking-and-entering and larceny.