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OUR OPINION
Pend Oreille County’s response to The Miner trying to find out how two men died in the county jail has been woefully insufficient.
To his credit, Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee confirmed that Franz Kroll died by suicide when asked in August 2022. But he released no further information on Kroll’s death or the death of another inmate, Jacob Mitchell, who died in April 2023.
At least not until the county received a letter from The Miner’s attorney seeking to find out how the men died, including seeking documents related to any investigations into the deaths.
The county’s newly hired public records officer, working through the Prosecutor’s Office, released a paltry six documents, and withheld the rest, sweeping them under the rug of a state law that says autopsies and death certificates aren’t releasable to the public.
Using the dubious claim that all documents, records, photographs, and other items that were reviewed and/or relied upon in determining the cause of death are exempt from public disclosure, no real answer was given to how the men died while being held in the county jail.
The Miner doesn’t want to know out of some macabre curiosity. We want to know if the county jail is safe for prisoners, most of whom are being held pre-trial, when they are still presumed innocent.
Even the ones who are serving sentences deserve safety while incarcerated. The state legislature agreed, passing a law that requires the chief law enforcement officer have an Unexpected Fatality Review performed and release the results within 120 days of an in-custody death.
Blakeslee had a review done of the Kroll death, but we and the state Department of Health haven’t seen it, a year and a half past the due date.
It’s past time for Pend Oreille County Prosecutor Dolly Hunt to take the public’s right to know seriously. There is a public interest in knowing the inmates are safe and that the county is taking steps to see that they don’t die in jail, therefore preventing potential lawsuits.
--DG
