Family of man who died ‘like he was an animal’ in jail cell begging for help wins $3.4 million settlement

A Minnesota county has agreed to a $3.4 million settlement with the family of an inmate who spent his final hours crawling around on a jail floor “like he was an animal,” dying from the effects of a hole in his intestine as nurses and jailers ignored his desperate pleas for help after he told them he had ingested a bag of drugs.

The family of Lucas Bellamy, 41, who died in 2022 while detained at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center, received the settlement in their federal wrongful death lawsuit.

“This settlement cannot remotely fill the void left by Lucas’ loss,” the family’s attorney, Jeff Storms, said in an email to Law&Crime. “However, it is an important step with respect to accountability and responsibility. Our hope is that Lucas’s senseless death has served and will serve to inspire badly needed improvements to correctional care in Minnesota and nationwide.”

The lawsuit names three nurses, a jailer, jail medical contractor Hennepin Healthcare System, Inc., and Hennepin County.

“The death of Mr. Bellamy was a tragedy,” Hennepin County spokeswoman Carolyn Marinan said in a statement. “Our condolences go out to his family and to all those affected by his death. While this litigation has reached a resolution, we remain committed to serving all people under our care with dignity and respect.”

A media representative for Hennepin Healthcare said in a statement to Law&Crime, “We join our community in sharing our deepest condolences to the family for the loss of their loved one. We hold steadfast in our commitment to delivering high quality care, creating a safe and healing environment for everyone.”

The complaint spells out the allegations after Bellamy’s July 18, 2022, arrest on charges of fleeing police in a suspected stolen vehicle and possession of brass knuckles.

At the jail, he told jailers he had ingested a bag of drugs. He was taken to an emergency department at 5:53 a.m. There, Bellamy was sedated and monitored for several hours before he was released back to the jail at 9 a.m. with orders that if he showed “any new concerning symptoms,” he should be sent back to the emergency department, court documents said.

At the jail, he indeed developed such symptoms, but no one sent him back to the emergency department, court documents said.

Shortly after midnight on July 20, 2022, Lucas became ill and started vomiting in his general population bunk. He was then moved from the general population into a protective custody unit with one inmate per cell.

Jail staff did not record why Lucas was moved to a new cell, but jail staff later recorded that the move was “possibly due to bad [withdrawals],” the lawsuit said.

He began declining his meals and wouldn’t leave his cell for the allotted one-hour time out of his cell, and his condition worsened.

At 9:40 p.m., a nurse noted that he was complaining of stomach pain. He was in such severe pain that it took him 45 seconds to crawl out of his cell on his hands and knees after a jailer opened the cell door, court documents said. He could not reach a table without collapsing face-first onto the ground. Neither the nurse nor the jailer helped him up.

Bellamy told the nurse he was not able to eat.

“I need to go to the hospital,” he told her, according to court documents. “I need IV liquid.”

He told her he had stomach pains.

The nurse informed Bellamy she “was not sending [him] to the hospital tonight” and told him to contact jail medical staff if his symptoms got worse, the lawsuit said.

At 1:30 a.m. on July 21, 2022, Bellamy used the intercom to contact a guard, screaming, “help me, help me.”

A guard found him lying on the floor in the fetal position.

“I asked how he was feeling and [Lucas] stated ‘my stomach hurts really bad, help me,’” noted the guard, who called the medical room.

A different nurse and guard went to Bellamy’s cell. The nurse noted he was in extreme pain, was kneeling with his head on the floor, and was crying.

“I need to go the hospital, please help me,” he told them, according to court documents.

He crawled out of his cell again on his hands and knees, and neither this nurse nor the jailer helped him. Despite this, the nurse noted he was “[a]ble to stand up, walk outside his cell sit up and sit still for vitals signs taking [sic],” the lawsuit said, adding that it was a “gross mischaracterization of Lucas’s physical abilities.”

“Lucas could never stand fully erect, and instead walked to the table hunched over grasping at his stomach,” the lawsuit said.

Later, Bellamy requested to see a nurse again, complaining of a burning stomach.

One nurse wrote in Bellamy’s chart that he had “started to whine” and suggested he was faking, court documents said.

The nurse took no vitals and gave Bellamy Maalox through the slot in the cell door.

At 8:40 a.m. on July 21, 2022, another nurse and guard visited Bellamy’s cell for standard medication rounds. Bellamy crawled out of his cell again on his hands and knees. The jailer, the document noted, “showed no concern for Lucas’s well-being.”

During the interaction, the jailer at times “could be seen smiling and laughing while interacting with other individuals as Lucas suffered on the floor,” court documents said.

Surveillance footage captured Bellamy in the final throes just before noon on July 21, 2022. Thirty minutes later, Lucas was found face down in his cell. He could not be resuscitated and was declared dead at 1:17 p.m. His cause of death was peritonitis due to a duodenal perforation — an infection from a hole in his small intestine. Court documents noted this is an easily treatable problem when addressed timely.

“Instead of receiving the medical treatment that was ordered and Lucas desperately needed, Hennepin Healthcare and County employees left Lucas to crawl around on the jail floor like he was subhuman, like he was an animal, while he slowly and painfully died from the effects of a hole in his intestine. Lucas could have been easily saved with proper treatment. Instead, he endured a real-life nightmare and died on July 21, 2022,” the lawsuit said.

Bellamy’s father, Louis Bellamy, who founded a theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, told The Associated Press that what he witnessed happened to his son was something he could not even imagine unfolding in a tragic play.

“[I] could not have built anything more callous, more disrespectful to … humanity, human existence than what I witnessed on that tape,” he said.

Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.

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