News

Jail inmate's cause of death ruled undetermined

Posted December 20, 2007 10:00 pm

Sarah Antonacci

A Sangamon County coroner's jury Thursday was unable to determine the specific cause of death of A. Paul Carlock, a clown performer, former police officer and minister accused of child sex crimes.

Carlock, a federal inmate at the county jail, died Nov. 16, shortly after being Tasered for failing to comply with correctional officers who were trying to take him to the hospital.

Too many factors could have contributed to the 57-year-old Springfield resident's death for a single cause to be cited, the jury of four women and three men ruled.

Members of Carlock's family were at the inquest, but they declined comment afterward.

Testimony indicated that Carlock had coronary artery disease, but that he'd also struggled with jail staff, been shocked with a Taser and had one correctional officer lay across his shoulders and sit on his left shoulder while Carlock was on his stomach.

In addition, when jail personnel learned that Carlock was in distress, they put out a second call for an ambulance, whose paramedics immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation. No CPR had been performed by jail personnel, according to the testimony.

"The jury left it open, or undetermined, because there were too many factors," said Coroner Susan Boone, adding that they couldn't decide which issues "contributed to his death or not."

Testimony at the inquest confirmed that Carlock began showing signs of physical distress after a struggle with Sangamon County Jail officers.

Lt. Ron Beckner, a correctional officer for the past 26 years, said jail personnel first approached Carlock, who'd been acting erratically, the morning of Nov. 16 to take him to the hospital. They tried to get his shirt on him, he said, but when they did, he defecated and began to scream and yell.

So they tried to get him in a restraint chair, "and all the time he was screaming and yelling" and eventually wriggled his way onto the floor in the hallway, Beckner said.

Beckner, who arrived about that time, said Carlock was kicking and screaming and fighting so hard that he knocked one correctional officer off his feet. That's when the Taser was deployed against the back of Carlock's leg between his buttocks and his knee.

"He was still fighting after he was Tased," Beckner testified.

Correctional officer Kevin Furlong then laid across Carlock's shoulder blades trying to restrain him, Beckner said. Eventually, Beckner said, Furlong sat on Carlock's left shoulder. He estimated it was for about two minutes.

Boone told jurors the total time Furlong was either lying across Carlock's back or sitting on his shoulder lasted anywhere from one to five minutes.

"Based on the situation at the time, it was fine. It was not disrupting his breathing," Beckner said. "Shortly after this is when he began to calm down."

Beckner said Furlong was off of Carlock for about one minute when jail staff realized a change of color in Carlock's face.

"The nurse said the pulse was there, but it was weak," Beckner recalled.

They called an ambulance for a second time and asked that it be expedited. (It had first been called for the simple transport to the hospital before Carlock's health started to fail.)

"The ambulance arrived three to five minutes after the second call, and they started CPR," Beckner testified.

After the inquest, Beckner said he was "surprised" to see paramedics start administering CPR directly upon their arrival because the jail's nurse said CPR wasn't needed. There was also a defibrillator nearby, he said.

"There was nothing wrong with our techniques. If there was, I would have been the first to mention it. The force we use is the least amount possible," he said. "Our medical staff had not indicated (he needed CPR).

"I didn't think he was that bad."

Other testimony indicated Carlock had serious heart disease, and one of his arteries was 75 percent blocked. That made it difficult to determine whether the struggle contributed to Carlock's death or whether it might have occurred when it did anyway, pathologist Dr. Jessica Bowman told the jury.

"It's as likely as it did as that it didn't. I can't say," she said.

Afterward, Bowman added: "It (his heart) was a ticking time-bomb situation."

At the start of the inquest, Boone blasted The State Journal-Register's coverage of Carlock's death and her response to it.

"A lot of the facts have been skewed and twisted," she said, citing the newspaper's interview of another inmate who said he witnessed what happened to Carlock and whose version of events differed from jail officials'.

She said that when it "came time to interview that witness, he changed his address and phone number, but he managed to get to The State Journal-Register before he left."

The account of that former inmate, James McLemore, led to the first report that a jailer had sat on Carlock during the struggle. The newspaper also was the first to report that Carlock had been Tasered.

Boone further noted that a source for last weekend story that recounted three deaths and one hospitalization of Sangamon County inmates in the past three months, Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, is a convicted murderer.

Wright was convicted of the 1987 murder of a cocaine dealer in Washington state. He was released in 2003. He started his publication from behind bars and continues as editor today, having uncovered political and corporate scandals and documented prisoner abuse and medical neglect.

Carlock, a former Springfield and Grandview police officer who also entertained children as "Klutzo the Clown," died at St. John's Hospital about 90 minutes after he arrived. An internal investigation by the sheriff's office found that no procedures were violated, while the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service continue to investigate the matter.

Carlock, of the 2300 block of Hedge Lane, was accused of sex tourism - traveling to the Philippines to engage in sexual conduct with a minor - and possession of child pornography. He was arrested Oct. 9.

Sarah Antonacci can be reached at (217) 788-1529 or sarah.antonacci@sj-r.com.

Article Categories
News