Editor,

Everyone involved in Keaton Farris’ death at the Island County Jail must be held accountable.

It is mind boggling how many people were involved in the killing of Keaton Farris. It appears Island County Sheriff Mark Brown is taking some action now, but it’s hard to fathom how he and his predecessor missed the inept and dangerous leadership of Dennis De at the jail over the years.

Just before he was arrested Keaton told Lynnwood officer Koonce: “I’m off my meds and I’m pretty anxious right now but your badge is calming me down.” Seventeen days later he was dead. The treatment he received at the hands of officers who are sworn to protect the people they serve was horrendous.

Before he arrived at the jail he had been kept in isolation, off his medication, shot with a taser, “taken to the ground” multiple times, left in a restraint chair for hours and his medication lost. Once at Island County he continued to be kept in isolation, stripped of his clothes other than a suicide smock, left without water, denied medical treatment and visits by his family. He died alone and was found by a jailer hours later who poked a baton through a slot to see if Keaton would move.

The treatment Keaton received at the jail has happened before, but this time things got so carried away someone died. These practices have taken place under at least two administrations and no one has called Dennis out on his and his subordinates’ inhumane and degrading treatment of people.

The jailers on duty and their supervisors are all culpable in Keaton’s death. The least of their punishments should be to spend a week in their own Behavior Modification Module in just a suicide smock and given a couple Dixie cups of water a day. But that would be considered inhumane. It is, and it was.

They do need to be put on trial for murder, because that is what happened here. If you deny the most basic means for a person to stay alive until they die, how can that be called anything but murder?

If you want to help keep what happened from happening again and have the people involved be held accountable, let Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks know. More information on Keaton and what you can do is at www.keatonh2o.com.

JULIE O’BRIEN

Clinton