PHOENIX, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- In a $6.2 million claim against the Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff's Office, a woman says she sat in a jail cell for 40 minutes with a garbage bag on her head.
Angela Chavez-Metzger, 44, said in a court claim that after her Feb. 28 arrest on suspicion of assaulting her husband, sheriff's detention officers were negligent, showed deliberate indifference to medical needs and showed her substandard treatment because she is Hispanic, the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic reported Wednesday.
Chavez-Metzger admitted being under the influence of prescription medication that evening and said she believes she told Phoenix police and firefighters she was suicidal, the newspaper said.
Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack McIntyre said a review of the incident suggested Chavez-Metzger was using the large garbage bag for warmth, the bag had obscured her ethnicity and that she "reported her name to be Metzger."
Her claim states her medical conditions should have been known to detention officers because she told them of her negative reaction to medication in prior stays at Maricopa County jails.
The newspaper noted county administrators had not yet purchased an electronic health records system that could track such information about inmates, part of a federal court-ordered oversight program begin in 2008, when a ruling found conditions in the jails fell short of constitutional standards prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
