The South Dakota highway Patrol took Sarah Lee Circle Bear, a 24-year-old Lakota woman from Claremont, into custody on a bond violation after a traffic accident on July 3. Circle Bear died on July 5, after two days in custody, first at the Roberts County jail, then at the Brown County jail.
After over a month of investigation, Attorney General Marty Jackley announced Thursday that Circle Bear died of a meth overdose.
Circle Bear’s family questions the circumstances of her death:
It is unknown as to how the toxic and deadly levels of methamphetamine found a way into Circle Bear’s bloodstream, and her father, Terrence Circle Bear, has his doubts about the cause of death.
“How did she get that much meth?” Terrence Circle Bear said by phone Friday.
Circle Bear said another daughter, Adrienne Yancey, is in possession of the jumpsuit Sarah Circle Bear was wearing at the time of her death.
“It had blood on it,” Terrence Circle Bear said. “How do you explain that from a meth overdose?” [Shannon Marvel, “Timeline Limits Inmate’s Possible Meth Possession,” Aberdeen American News, 2015.08.15]
The Aberdeen American News reports, however, that meth overdoses can manifest themselves two days or more after ingestion:
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, a person could die from a methamphetamine overdose 48 hours or more after ingesting it if he or she were a chronic user.
…According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, while 50 percent of cocaine is removed from the body in one hour, it takes 12 hours for 50 percent of meth to leave the body.
A methamphetamine overdose can be acute or chronic, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. An acute overdose happens when a person takes the drug and experiences life-threatening side effects. A chronic overdose refers to the health effects in someone who uses the drug on a regular basis.
“The effects are felt longer and the withdrawals and recovery period can be longer with methamphetamines,” [Worthmore addiction counselor Jodi] Hepperle said [Katherine Grandstrand, “Some Meth Users Can Overdose Days After Last Using,” Aberdeen American News, 2015.08.15].
Circle Bear’s death is making the rounds in some national online media as a parallel to the Sandra Bland case in Texas. The local paper is giving the death front-page scrutiny. Even if the death is what the autopsy report says it is, it is proper to ask why local jail officials did not see signs of drug use and an overdose reaction coming.
More Jackley-booted thugs working South Dakota’s school to prison pipeline? What a shocker.
Can proper medical care head off a meth overdose? 48 hours is a long time for doctors and nursing staff to act.
Some signs that a person may be experiencing an overdose of meth can include:
Chest pain.
Heart attack.
Difficulty breathing.
Kidney failure.
Severe stomach pain.
Stroke.
Seizures.
The stopping of one’s heart.
More items…
Must not have been keeping an eye on her or they may have ignored her or…..?
Or the standard “she’s faking”.
I have an issue with blaming jail staff for her death. Unless she was forced to consume the drug, she owns, at least partially, for her own death.
“Her father, Terrance Circle Bear, said Thursday that a fellow inmate told him his daughter was suffering and repeatedly asked jail employees for help but was ignored. He declined to identify the inmate but said he is working with an attorney to examine his daughter’s case.” Link below
http://news.yahoo.com/autopsy-woman-south-dakota-jail-died-meth-overdose-135548031.html?bcmt=1439581031058-a510cadf-1afd-4f63-8435-e71c0561e96d_00002b000000000000000000000000-d156edf9-c03f-43dd-9946-7fa27a8a4cba&bcmt_s=u#mediacommentsugc_container
Hopefully the Circle Bear family will demand a second independent autopsy.
This story also follows a pattern of policing for profit that is common place in black communities. Native Americans are arrested continuously for relatively minor violations and than are subjected to all sorts of court costs, fines, etc.
This is why weed is bad. It is bad. This has nothing to do with the young lady’s last name or ethnicity or culture.
Weed is bad.
so, you want me to throw myself on your stink grenade to protect dfp readers from your off topic remark, grud? how peepeetarian.
I don’t know much about meth, except how addictive it is, even risky to make. It may be true that it could kill someone a couple days after it’s ingested. Given the state’s ugly history of treatment of natives, I am suspicious.
Grudz is on to something.
It is the same judgmental, condescending, and pathological wish to punish attitude some have towards Marijuana that cultivates an unsympathetic and unprofessional law enforcement reaction to an ailing “druggy” of: “you made your bed…”.
“Faking it” is not a consideration when you have taken someone’s freedom to seek help. If one catches and locks up the neighbor’s loose pet, we are required to keep it safe. Why are our prisons held to a lesser standard?
The Daily Kos is making a stronger statement about her treatment. Other blogs report she was pregnant. Wouldn’t jailers do an intake and follow a more cautious protocol? If she was a regular meth user will they know the severity of her use from hair samples?
DK: Witnesses stated that before being transferred to a holding cell, Circle Bear pleaded to jailers that she was in excruciating pain. Jail staff responded by dismissing her cries for help, telling her to “knock it off,” and “quit faking.” Inmates cried out for the jail staff to help Circle Bear, to which they eventually responded by picking her up off of the floor, dragging her out of the cell, and transferring her to a holding cell. Circle Bear was later found unresponsive in the holding cell.
Sounds like pre-meditated manslaughter in the first degree. Or negligent manslaughter on the part of the fuzz.
‘Jeniw’, your comment is hostile, insensitive, and offensive. The info we know is that the autopsy shows she died of a meth overdose. It fails to explain how that’s possible if – as reported – she had been in the jail for the previous 48 hours.
Grud’s moronic observation re: ‘weed’ is just par for the course for him.
I can relate to what JeniW is saying. What happened to shared responsibility? With what has been happening lately in the US it’s always someone else’s fault with a free pass on our own actions.
This young woman’s passing was tragic while in the Brown County jail. She is a mother, family, friends and tribal community that loved her. My sympathy goes out to them! The newspaper also shows she had a history of substance abuse, addiction and driving under the influence. Using drugs/addiction will have negative affects on our bodies. We pay the price for our actions in life.
I have personally known staff members of jails in the past outside of the system and they have been professional and have procedures to follow. Those inmates are in their care and there is liability. One example was that there was an inmate during in processing that started to complain of pain that would be severe in nature. The staff suspected she was faking it but took her to the hospital anyways just to make sure and cover themselves. Sure enough this inmate was faking it.
That county jail like many in cities close in size around the state process unfortunately process many inmates per week regardless of skin color, race, or whatever. We live in an imperfect world with people hurting, suffering mental illness, making poor choices that end up landing them in the county jail.
Until this is pursued further legally we don’t know if there is more to this but lately whether it’s in some other place in the country or here in South Dakota before we just blame it on someone else there needs to be an acceptance of responsibility of what got you or that person into that situation.
Happy, other blogs say Circle Bear’s family say she was pregnant, but the autopsy reports no sign she was pregnant.
Curt, I’ll take my chances and put one foot on JeniW’s side of the line. If you take meth (and holy cow, do we want to talk about taking meth while pregnant?), you bear moral culpability for the consequences. That said, just as Barry points out in his comparison to taking in the neighbor’s loose pet, when we incarcerate someone, we take on responsibility for that person’s well being. If an inmate is suffering an overdose from drugs taken before incarceration, we can’t just stand by the cell door saying, “Serves you right” and watch her die. We have an obligation to help.
But the question is, did the jail officials stand idly by? Did they have evidence anything was wrong with their prisoner?
Lynn and Cory, then by analogy are you saying women who wear sexy clothes, go to bars, imbibe in illegal pills and are raped while unconscious are partly responsible for being raped?
South Dakota deserves people like Lynn passing judgement before trial and executing prisoners willy-nilly: bravo.
It’s time to ask questions, let the facts come in, and be reminded blogs of all different sort allow information that might or might not be correct to spread all too quickly. We can’t believe everything we read.
Who’s selling ice in the jail? A prisoner or a cop? If it’s “time to ask questions”, then ask them all.
This case is just another one in which the atrocious public information laws in the state contribute to unfounded speculation, misinformation, confusion, and ignorance. The American News reporter does the best she can with the information officials deign to dole out, but the actual autopsy report is not available for examination. The AP count states, “A spokeswoman for Jackley said autopsy reports in South Dakota are not available to the public.” However in the long list of exceptions to required public disclosure, there is this article:
“(5) Records developed or received by law enforcement agencies and other public bodies charged with duties of investigation or examination of persons, institutions, or businesses, if the records constitute a part of the examination, investigation, intelligence information, citizen complaints or inquiries, informant identification, or strategic or tactical information used in law enforcement training. However, this subdivision does not apply to records so developed or received relating to the presence of and amount or concentration of alcohol or drugs in any body fluid of any person, and this subdivision does not apply to a 911 recording or a transcript of a 911 recording, if the agency or a court determines that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the interest in nondisclosure. This law in no way abrogates or changes §§ 23-5-7 and 23-5-11 or testimonial privileges applying to the use of information from confidential informants;”
It would appear that, as the autopsy involved an examination for drugs, that its report would be permitted to be made public.
The last line in the American News story reports that the autopsy found no evidence of plastic bags in which meth would be contained. The presumable reason for that is another story in circulation regarding the arrest of Circle Bear. A male in her car was also taken into custody in Roberts County, and, the story goes, he became frightened and told the police that he had swallowed plastic bags of meth. The story goes that they were medially removed, but that Sarah Lee had also swallowed bags which they had intended to sell. I assume that the reporter heard the same story and asked the coroner about it. Again the laws on public records keep the public uninformed and provide a lot of cover for incompetence and misperformance in law enforcement. Such is life and death in South Dakota.
my sympathies are with the addict who has lost the ability of free choice, owning her own death when unable to “just say no”.
i could be wrong. the science is probably not clear.
prolly misusing foodstamps too. (cynicism)