Maryland Department of Corrections Failed to Prevent Fatal Stabbing at Baltimore Prison in 2021 – Baltimore Sun

State authorities failed to prevent the 2021 fatal stabbing of a man awaiting trial in a Baltimore jail, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court by his mother.

Shane Burton, 33, was attacked at the Maryland State Reception Diagnostic and Classification Center in Baltimore on August 27, 2021. Burton was being held on suspicion of armed robbery, assault, drug possession and weapons possession. according to an article in the Baltimore Sun.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday by Victoria Ann Burton in U.S. District Court for Maryland, the stabbing occurred after inmates on the upper floor of a two-story unit tampered with the locks of their cells, a practice known as “popping.” Burton's mother is representing her son's estate and is also suing on her own behalf.

Six correctional officers were absent from the unit for at least 20 minutes when the inmates left their cells and attacked Burton, the complaint says.

Some inmates stood guard outside Burton's cell on the lower floor of the station while others went in, barricaded the door and repeatedly attacked him with improvised knives.

“After the brutal assault, battery and stabbing of Mr. Burton, many minutes passed before a correctional officer entered the unit, and many more minutes passed before anyone realized anything was wrong,” attorney Arren Waldrep of the DC law firm Price Benowitz wrote in the complaint.

Correctional officers also failed to provide Burton with timely medical attention after discovering the stabbing, the complaint says. It took a while for an officer to find the correct key to Burton's cell. When she entered the cell and saw Burton lying wounded on the floor, she reported the attack and waited for backup, but did not provide assistance.

Other officers cleared the area of ​​inmates but did not provide medical aid to Burton for “an extended period of time,” the complaint says, without giving an exact time. It was not until emergency personnel arrived that anyone attended to Burton's injuries.

The lawsuit names the state and Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, as well as certain correctional officials and employees, as defendants.

Lowell Melser, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said DPSCS could not comment on the case because of the pending litigation.

The complaint accused the state and the agency of failing to ensure an appropriate officer-to-inmate ratio and allowing the problem with cell door locks to persist. Officials knew the dangers of understaffing and using inadequately trained and underqualified correctional officers, as well as the risk that inmates could leave their cells and create improvised weapons, but they failed to correct those conditions, the complaint said.

Burton's rights under the Eighth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were violated, as were his rights under the Maryland Declaration of Rights, the complaint states.

Shortly after Burton's death, his public defender Maureen O'Leary described him in The Sun as a loving father to his daughter.

A few months later, the state corrections officers union said that understaffing made the prisons unsafe for both employees and inmates. In January 2022, inmates at the Baltimore prison where Burton died set fires that resulted in the hospitalization of three inmates and a corrections officer and caused $50,000 in damages.

The lawsuit did not specify a specific amount for the damages sought, but said attorneys are seeking an amount in excess of $75,000. Burton's mother suffered lost wages and financial loss, as well as mental anguish and emotional pain and suffering, the lawsuit said, while Burton's estate must pay for expenses such as funeral costs.