COLUMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — Death in Florida prisons, vulnerable inmates put in cells with violent prisoners, officers doing so for "sadistic and malicious purpose." These are the allegations in a new lawsuit filed against the Florida Department of Corrections.
The state labeled a death inside Columbia Correctional Institution in 2022 as "natural". Dennis Williams' family, calls it a killing after he was put in a cell with another prisoner who had a history of violence, according to the lawsuit.
Lawyers the ABC Action News I-Team spoke with said it's part of a larger problem — a lack of transparency about how and why otherwise healthy inmates are dying before their release dates and who is responsible.
I-Team Series | Crisis in Corrections
As part of its ongoing series, Crisis in Corrections, the I-Team reported last year on death investigations open for years, with families left waiting for answers and violent and untimely deaths said to be "natural".
Families seek answers about loved ones' deaths in Florida's state prisons
At the time, Starleater Simmons told the I-Team, "I need somebody to be accountable for the actions for my son’s death.”
Jamaltre Simmons died Dec. 6, 2021, while serving a 15-year prison sentence for burglary at Suwannee Correctional Institution. The medical examiner's report listed his cause of death as “Peritonitis due to acute appendicitis with rupture of appendix.”
Simmons said her son had been asking for medical treatment. He was 34 years old.
State Rep. Dianne Hart of Tampa said, “Far too many deaths are occurring inside of our facilities. So something’s wrong, something’s seriously wrong.”
"Somebody dropped the ball"
Kaytrina Humphrey-Williams told the I-Team she will never forget the day she received a phone call about her son 34-year-old son, Dennis.
"No parent should have to receive a call like that from an institution with no remorse, no nothing. When the chaplain called me, I knew right away what it was," Humphrey-Williams said. "When he said, 'I'm sorry to tell you' — I dropped the phone. I dropped to my knees, and I screamed, as loud as I could, 'Lord no, not my child, not my son.'”
Williams, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, was serving a 15-year sentence at Columbia Correctional Institution for drug charges and attempted murder in a burglary-turned-shooting. He was found dead in a cell.
But Williams was not alone.
Photos taken during the death investigation show another inmate, Jaquaon Polk, who was sharing a cell with Williams at the time of his death. Polk was serving a 5-year sentence for armed burglary and grand theft of a firearm, and according to the lawsuit filed by Williams' family — "Polk was not allowed to be celled with other inmates."
“I knew that for my son to have passed away, somebody dropped the ball," Humphrey-Williams told the I-Team.
"Things like this happen all the time"
Humphrey-Williams knows this because she used to do this. She worked as a corrections officer for the Florida Department of Corrections.
"It hurt me so bad because I worked almost 12 years of my life, I dedicated to the Department of Corrections and took pride in my job. My son used — the same one that's dead right now — used to iron my uniform for me," she said.
Humphrey-Williams said she and her husband went to Columbia C.I. to get answers about Williams' death.
"They couldn't tell me anything other than the fact that it happens all the time. Things like this happen all the time as if they are cattle," she said.
Humphrey-Williams believes her son was killed by the other inmate in his cell. However, the medical examiner determined Williams died of natural causes.
The I-Team dug into FDLE's investigative report, which said the first officer on the scene said Williams was "lying unresponsive on the floor". Polk was "licking the floor." That officer said he then saw Polk biting on Williams' genitals.
The medical examiner's report documented "abrasions, contusions, and lacerations" and "multiple bite marks" on Williams' body. According to the lawsuit, "When Mr. Polk was eventually taken out of the cell, he yelled, 'I killed [him], who's next?"
But the medical examiner determined Williams died due to a "ruptured dissecting aorta".
"Natural" death
“We don’t buy it. That this is a natural death," Williams' attorney James Slater, who represents prisoners and their families, told the I-Team.
As part of the lawsuit filed against the Department of Corrections, Slater said the officers knew.
"They knew. That Mr. Polk was a predator, that he had problems, and they knew that he wasn’t supposed to go into Mr. Williams’ cell," Slater said. "These officers put Mr. Polk in Dennis Williams’ cell, really just for the purpose of punishing him. For their own sick pleasure."
In February, the I-Team reported on another inmate who was pronounced dead from "an apparent inmate-on-inmate assault" at Hamilton Correctional Institution, the same prison where two correctional officers were fired a week prior after the I-Team revealed video of an inmate being slapped.
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The I-Team reviewed records for Columbia C.I. and found 41 inmates have died in the past five years. One was determined to be a homicide.
The Department of Corrections said "natural" deaths include those that do not fall into the category of suicide, homicide, or accidental.
“They absolutely got this wrong," Slater said. "The other prisoners knew about Mr. Polk, knew about his propensity for violence, and they refused to be cuffed. And by doing so, the guards weren’t able to put them in their cells. And so Mr. Williams just didn’t know that this guy was violent, and he allowed for him to be put in his cell, and then he was tortured. Tortured to the point where Mr. Polk killed and then began to, in a sick and depraved way, mutilate his body.”
Slater said Williams "tried to declare what is called a psychological emergency. Basically get me out of there, I need protection, I need help, and what they did is they put him right back in the cell. With Jaquaon Polk, he went, he continued to torture him, according to our witnesses, there was still additional commotion and violence, and then all of a sudden it stopped.”
The I-Team spoke with a former prisoner who said he heard that violence — Brandon Burget. At the time, he posted a video to TikTok that went viral.
“An inmate was put in a cell after the officers were told not to put him in that cell because the inmate would kill him," Burget said in the video. “Why are we forced into these hostile environments? Why are we forced to live like this after asking for help? When we ask for help, we should get it.”
According to FDLE, investigators said Burget "knew nothing about the incident and was not in a location to have heard or seen anything."
But Burget told the I-Team that's not the case. After reaching Burget by phone, he said he and other prisoners heard screaming after Williams was put in a cell with Polk.
“We all must die. But to die like that?" Humphrey-Williams said. “We hear his cry, we hear it. They didn't hear it at the prison. But I hear it. I hear it in my sleep every night. I hear his cry.”
Florida Department of Corrections
For weeks, the I-Team contacted the Department of Corrections, asking about Williams' death and his family's lawsuit. FDC said it does not comment on active litigation. On Friday, the attorney general's office filed a motion to dismiss the complaint.
The I-Team also reached out to Polk's public defender for comment but has not yet heard back. Polk's pre-trial conference for abuse of a dead human body is scheduled for July 1.