Sheriff: Investigation underway after inmate’s death at jail

Published 8:36 am Thursday, February 20, 2020

MEMPHIS (AP) — Authorities in Tennessee were investigating the death of an inmate at a jail in downtown Memphis.

Tommy Young, 32, was found unresponsive inside his cell Saturday night, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday, according to news outlets. A medical examiner hasn’t determined Young’s official cause of death, sheriff’s office spokesperson Capt. Anthony Buckner said.

Young was being held on a $100 bond for a 2017 assault charge, The Commercial Appeal reported. He was accused of throwing “a substance described as feces mixed with water into the face and chest” of a corrections officer, according to jail records.

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Josh Spickler, the executive director of a nonprofit organization that’s focused on criminal justice in the Memphis area, doesn’t believe Young should have been jailed at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center, also known as 201 Poplar.

“Whatever caused this tragedy to occur, he shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Spickler told the newspaper. “A $100 bond means ‘You are of no risk to us.’”

Jail records showed Young had been in jail since Jan. 31, roughly two years after the assault occurred, the newspaper reported.