James Tatsch was not charged with any crime. But when he was found unresponsive in an isolation cell at the Alcorn County Jail on Jan. 17, he had been locked up for 12 days. He died at the local hospital.

Tatsch was waiting for mental health treatment through Mississippi’s involuntary commitment process. Every year, hundreds of people going through the process are detained in county jails for days or weeks at a time while they wait for evaluations, hearings and treatment. They are generally treated like criminal defendants and receive little or no mental health care while jailed.

Mississippi Today and ProPublica previously reported that since 2006, at least 14 people have died after being jailed during this process. Tatsch, who was 48 years old, is at least the 15th. No one in the state keeps track of how often people die while jailed for this reason. The news organizations identified the deaths through lawsuits, news clips and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports. MBI investigates in-custody deaths only at the request of the local sheriff or district attorney.

  • @maness300
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    -1810 months ago

    So now we defend pedophiles on lemmy?

    What a place to be.

    • ArxCyberwolf
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      810 months ago

      So now we make strawmen and put words into other people’s mouths to win imaginary arguments on Lemmy? What a place to be indeed.

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
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        10 months ago

        Honestly, that kinda thing is more common on Lemmy than it was on Reddit in my experience. Don’t run into many bad actors here, but when you do it’s someone who either purposely ignores what was said, or have absolutely no reading comprehension skills.

      • @maness300
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        -610 months ago

        That’s literally what he did.

        • prole
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          310 months ago

          No it’s definitely not. Work on your reading comprehension and try again.

          • @maness300
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            -510 months ago

            Lol, now you’re just going through all my comments and replying to me?

            Sad fellow.

            • prole
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              110 months ago

              Lol what? Why would you think I did that?

              • @maness300
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                -310 months ago

                Because it’s what you’re doing, lol.