Another jail incident with inmate in wheelchair; nurse fired

Tampa, Florida -- The latest incident involving a wheelchair-bound person at a Tampa Bay area jail occurred August 8th at the Faulkenburg Road Jail, which is the jail's medical facility.

The Brian Sterner wheelchair dumping incident was in February 2008 at the Orient Road jail.

Dr. Jim Sewell, who headed the independent jail review panel after the Sterner incident, says there were two issues of concern. First, that the event where Sterner, a quadriplegic, was dumped from a wheelchair in the jail and, secondly, that it didn't get reported.

Although Sewell wasn't happy there had been another incident in the jail, he was pleased this incident was reported up the chain of command.

Sewell says it is like a good news, bad news situation. He says the bad news is you don't treat people like that, but the good news is there was decisive action.

According to a Sheriff Internal Memo we obtained, the inmate, Jimmy Murdock, was in a wheelchair in a time out room at the jail medical facility. He was found lying on the floor, claiming he could not move his legs.

The deputy requested medical help and Nurse Oral Shaw responded and immediately informed the inmate he knew he could get up. After Shaw told him again to get up, the nurse began to grasp the inmate by his brace, then began to grasp the inmate by his shirt near his shoulders, and lifted the inmate's upper torso approximately two to four inches off the floor.

After a lieutenant says she told Shaw to stop, the memo says, he took his right foot and pushed it against the inmate's left leg, shifting the inmate's body position and stating, "You know you can get up."

Just last week, Sheriff David Gee told 10 Connects the first wheelchair story was valuable because it changed jail policies. He said there was nothing he could do about that incident but apologize and take responsibility for it. Gee says as much as he might have hated the incident, it opened his eyes and he learned a lot of things from it.

In a statement issued late Monday, Colonel Jim Previtera, who heads the jail, says Murdock suffered back injuries from a motor vehicle crash at the time of his arrest on a variety of violent charges. According to Previtera, Murdock has had a pattern of disruptive behavior since his arrest and after Murdock was transferred to TGH following the incident at the jail, no new back injuries were discovered.

But despite the Sheriff's Office statement, Hillsborough Commissioner Al Higgenbothom, who was on the jail review panel, says he thought there was a checklist the Sheriff had in place to guard against these issues and so did Jim Sewell.

Sewell says obviously at least one person didn't get the word and, he adds, no matter how much the nurse thought the inmate was faking, the reaction was not appropriate.

The health care in the jail is outsourced to a company called Armor Correctional. The most recent figures we have show taxpayers spent close to $21 million in 2008 on the company. They signed a three-year, $66-million contract which, by the way, wasn't the lowest bid.

The nurse involved in this incident worked for Armor Correctional. He was fired once the company learned of the allegations and confirmed what had happened. We went to the nurse's home and called but got no reply.

Finally, the sheriff office statement did not address how it makes sure outsourced employees are given the message about how to deal with disabled inmates.