A 30-year-old Cleveland man who was in Cuyahoga County jail after an arrest for burglarly died this weekend after being found unresponsive on Saturday.
Medical staff at the jail provided emergency care, according to a county spokesperson, but Adam Weakly, who was jailed on Jan. 12, was pronounced dead at MetroHealth about an hour later.
“The loss of any life is tragic and impacts so many. We offer our deepest condolences to those close to Mr. Weakley,” Cuyahoga County Sheriff Christopher Viland said in a statement. “An in-depth investigation has begun, and we will be working with our partners at MetroHealth Medical Center and the County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine what occurred.”
After nine inmates died at the jail in less than a year between 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Marshals issued a blistering report over the jail’s “inhumane” conditions, identifying under-staffing, leadership failures and lack of adequate training as longstanding issues. Multiple lawsuits from families of those who passed away, from inmates on whom jail staff used excessive force, and from former county officials who were fired after trying to bring attention to the dangerous conditions have seen the county cut more than $2.3 million in settlement checks.
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2022.
