The state Department of Corrections will pay a $3 million settlement to the family of a mentally ill prisoner who died after guards at San Carlos Correctional Facility in Pueblo ignored his seizures.
Christopher Lopez’s drawn-out ordeal was captured on a disturbing, six-hour video after he was removed from his cell in the early morning of March 17, 2013.
On the video, corrections staff members, including guards, and nurses can be heard talking, joking and laughing while Lopez lay dying.
The video captured Cheryl Neumeister, a mental health clinician, calling out “I can see you breathing,” to the shackled — and already dead — Lopez.
Neumeister was among three employees fired afterward, according to the lawsuit.
“The death of Christopher Lopez was easily preventable and was caused by a mentality that the lives of prisoners are worthless. Hopefully, this settlement sends a message not just to Colorado prison authorities but to prison and jail authorities all over the country that the human beings they incarcerate must be treated like human beings,” the lawyer for the 35-year-old Lopez’s family, David Lane, said in a statement Thursday.
The Department of Corrections acknowledged the settlement in a brief statement. “We wish to reiterate that Department does not condone the actions or omissions of the employees involved. Their actions were well outside of the Department’s established training, policies, and practices,” the statement said.
Lopez’s mother, Juanita Lopez, filed suit in June in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Prison officials said within 10 days of the incident, three employees were terminated and another five were subjected to corrective or disciplinary action.
Lopez, a schizophrenic, died of severe hyponatremia, a condition that occurs when sodium levels are too low. “Almost all instances of hyponatremia are treatable if a person receives prompt and adequate medical attention,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit suggested the condition was brought on by too much psychotropic medication.
Lopez, who dropped out of school in the seventh grade, was incarcerated for a series of minor offenses throughout his late teens and early 20s.
In 2005, while in the Weld County Jail, a counselor noted he “believes he is Jesus Christ,” the lawsuit said.
He died in 2013 after prison staff members noticed Lopez lying face down on the floor in his cell at 3:30 a.m., semiconscious and unresponsive.
Thinking he was refusing to respond, they removed him from his cell, placed a spit mask over his head, and dragged his limp body into a restraint chair.
They shackled him to the chair then wheeled him to an intake area of the prison, where they eventually removed him from the chair.
The camera recorded him suffering two grand mal seizures as guards and nurses casually chatted.
He died lying half-naked on a concrete floor.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671
