On April 7, 2018, Everett Palmer, Jr. was picked up on an old DUI charge and booked into Pennsylvania’s York County Prison (YCP).
Over the next two days, Palmer’s mental health deteriorated, much of which was captured on surveillance video, according to a report by the York County Investigating Grand Jury. He was hallucinating and screaming. He repeatedly put his blanket in the toilet and wrapped himself in it.
In the early morning hours of April 9, Palmer began to slam his head and fists into the cell door, according to the Grand Jury’s report. A unit supervisor tased him twice and correctional officers stormed his cell. They tackled him and placed a spit hood over his head.
Five officers carried him out of the cell and strapped him into a restraint chair. He was breathing heavily and appeared to be gasping for breath, according to the report. While he was still in the restraint chair, the guards took him to the medical unit. An ambulance was called and he was declared dead at the hospital. Palmer, an Army veteran, was 41-years-old.
In the wake of his death, local and national reporters wrote about the harrowing last days of Palmer’s life. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania opened an investigation into his case, but no charges were filed by local or federal prosecutors.
In the years since his death, York County has ramped up its use of restraint chairs. In 2018, the restraint chair was used a total of 148 times. Six years later, in 2024, the restraint chair was used 191 times—an increase of almost 30 percent—even though the population of the jail was about half of what it had been in 2018, according to The Appeal’s analysis of county data from 2018 to 2024. (The data for 2025 has not yet been published.)
As required by state law, counties report data on use-of-force incidents, including use of restraints, each month to the state Department of Corrections, but the data is not validated by outside sources.
According to The Appeal’s analysis, from 2018 through 2024, York County used restraint chairs a total of 1,295 times—more than any other county in the state.
Bolding added, archived at https://archive.ph/0Whf6