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Ryan Partridge (Screenshot from CBS Colorado)
A large settlement has been reached in a civil lawsuit filed by a former inmate who plucked his eyeballs out of his head while answering untreated delusions during a severe schizophrenic episode inside his Colorado jail cell.
Ryan Partridge, who was left permanently blind after the December 2016 eye gouging, settled his federal civil rights lawsuit alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical need for mental health treatment against then-Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle and the County, his lawyer David Lane said in a statement emailed to Law&Crime.
“He was refusing his meds and in a psychotic state,” Lane said. “Ryan Partridge plucked his own eyeballs from his head.”
The lawsuit resulted in two settlements. One is for $2.225 million for being “deliberately indifferent to his serious psychiatric needs.” The other was against jail staff for $325,000 for repeatedly using excessive force. Partridge’s lawyer provided videos from Boulder County Jail showing the alleged excessive force. In it, sheriff’s employees can be seen struggling with Partridge, who is naked. In the video, he appears he’s taken to the ground.
“It is hoped that this settlement sends a message to the Boulder Sheriff and law enforcement everywhere that when they ignore the serious psychiatric needs of inmates, it will cost them millions of dollars,” Lane said.
Partridge told CBS Colorado that the CIA was telling him to harm himself. He wound up in jail after his arrest for a minor assault with another homeless person, his attorney said.
“I don’t like solitary. I don’t think this would have happened had I not been in solitary,” he told the station. “I remember them asking if I wanted medication. I didn’t know what for, and I didn’t trust anyone.”
In a statement emailed to Law&Crime, the sheriff’s office said they do not believe any of the staff involved in the incident were at fault or violated the law.
“Nonetheless, it is our hope that the settlement will provide some closure for Mr. Partridge, his family, and the Sheriff’s Office employees who were impacted by the tragic events in which Mr. Partridge harmed himself during a mental health crisis he experienced in the jail,” the statement said.
The sheriff’s department said the incident is an example of the ongoing struggles faced by inmates with severe mental illness and the staff who must care for often extremely violent and unpredictable inmates within limits imposed by state law.
The statement said that the jail employs a highly qualified medical team that provides medical and mental health treatment to inmates, and it has protocols to prevent at-risk inmates from causing self-harm.
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“Boulder County and the Sheriff’s Office continue to explore and implement methods to better assist mentally ill inmates in the face of persistent, lengthy wait times at the state hospital,” the statement said.
The eye gouging wasn’t Partridge’s first attempt at self-harm while in the throes of psychosis in custody.
Six weeks earlier, Partridge tried to kill himself by climbing to the top railing on a second-floor tier at the jail and jumping – head first – to the ground, the lawsuit said. He smashed his head on a metal table and the cement floor, breaking his vertebra.
A month later, he tried again to jump from the same railing before guards talked him down, court documents said.
The severe self-mutilation and suicide attempts came months after similar incidents in the jail.
“In fact, throughout all of 2016, Mr. Partridge was in and out of the Boulder County Jail, each time presenting with unmistakable signs of severe mental illness and periodically being taken from the jail to go to the state mental hospital or an affiliated treatment center in attempts to restore him to legal competency to face the minor criminal charges pending against him,” the lawsuit said. “The jail was well aware that Mr. Partridge suffered from schizophrenia.”
Jail records show that in early 2016, Partridge was in a deep delusional psychosis when he reported he would gouge out his eyeballs. He violently banged his head into his toilet, leaving his head and face bloodied and breaking seven teeth, court documents said.
Partridge’s lawyer alleged that officials ignored a judge’s emergency order to get him the psychiatric treatment he needed.
“If any of the defendants had initiated appropriate medical intervention on behalf of Mr. Partridge, he would not be blind today, would not have broken seven teeth, or jumped from the second tier smashing his head into the metal table and cement floor of the jail and breaking his back,” the lawsuit said.
In an interview with CBS in 2017, Pelle spoke generally about dealing with inmates who suffer from mental health problems behind bars.
“Sometimes they can be treated with medication, but if they are not willing to take medication, jails are not equipped to force medication like a hospital would be… to stabilize people,” Pelle said.
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