Family request FBI for investigation into Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center after inmate death
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) – The family of an inmate who died at the Alvin S. Glen Detention Center is calling for an FBI investigation into the facility. The family says 27-year-old Lason Butler’s death points to the lack of structure in operations at the jail.
Lawyers with the Strom Law Firm representing the family claim Butler was being provided medication at the jail and was supposed to be monitored for 24 hours at a time but was not, and they also claim he had rat bites on his body, and died in the solitary confinement part of the facility.
“We all make mistakes in life but I swear it shouldn’t of had a death sentence for him. You don’t even treat an animal like that,” says John Matthews who is the father of Butler.
“A child does not die before its parents but because of the gross negligence, the gross carelessness of the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, and the gross failure of Richland County, South Carolina that natural cycle has been broken for the Butler family,” says Audia Jones, an attorney representing the family.
Attorney Stuart Andrews claims there are filthy conditions at the detention center and it can’t function properly because staffing there is severely low. He also claims some inmates are placed in a 3×3 shower stall and are left in there for hours and sometimes days at a time. “There’s no toilet, there’s no chair, there’s no bed, there’s no cushion, there’s nothing other than a concrete floor surrounded by steel and concrete. And in those situations these men are forced to urinate in the drain at the bottom of the cell,” says Andrews.
Lawyer Bakari Sellers with Strom Law Firm says Butler should be alive today and there will be justice for his family. “Through that State Tort Claims Act case I’m going to find out the medical providers that were suppose to be giving him the medical attention and then I’m going to sue them for violating his federal civil rights, and then I’m going to sue the director of the jail, and I’m going to sue a few other people and make them sit across the table from me and tell me why they didn’t care about Lason Butler.”
ABC Columbia reached out to Richland County which operates the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center about the claims, we are waiting for a response.
According to investigators Butler did not appear to have signs of trauma. Butler’s death is under investigation by the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
