Jail death blamed on administrative error
Nicous D’Andre Spring may well have died because the papers authorizing his discharge from Bordeaux were held up because it was Christmas Eve and certain office workers were away or had left early. The banality of fate, sometimes.
Ian 21:06 on 2023-01-24 Permalink
The banality of evil, more like. “I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS” energy here, Hannah Arendt is rolling in her grave.
Kate 22:34 on 2023-01-24 Permalink
I didn’t think of it quite that way. None of those admin people could have guessed that by taking half a day off they were condemning a man to death.
Ephraim 23:00 on 2023-01-24 Permalink
And not caring enough that someone got home for Christmas?
John B 23:14 on 2023-01-24 Permalink
I feel like if there are court hearings that could affect someone’s right to freedom on a day, the organizations responsible for pushing the paper to unlocking the doors have a responsibility to make sure someone is working to push the paper.
An individual employee should not be able to condemn someone to several more days in prison by simply taking the afternoon off. Either the employee must be working, or the organization must make sure someone else can cover.
Kate 10:42 on 2023-01-25 Permalink
True. I imagine working in the office of a prison engenders a certain callousness in attitude.
steph 12:10 on 2023-01-25 Permalink
I’m going to defend the workers, they probably have a delay accorded to them to process things. WIth an audience in front of the judge that ends friday at 16h08, these things take time to process. Court agents have paper work to send to the prison, prison staff have to process that paperwork for a release. Zero chance (even with the day staff not taking the afternoon off) is that getting done before Monday. This is a sad reality of the delays in our justice & prison system.
It’s not much different from the TV trope of spending the weekend in jail until you see the judge on monday.
Joey 14:06 on 2023-01-25 Permalink
He died because they killed him, not because his release was delayed.
Kate 14:26 on 2023-01-25 Permalink
True, but had he been released as ordered, he would not have been killed. Massive consequence from an oversight, but the very fact that releasing a man in time for Christmas was not considered important enough to expedite tells you something about their attitudes.
Ian 22:42 on 2023-01-25 Permalink
Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the people in charge of the release and the people that killed him are unrelated.
This is what “systemic” means.