LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A bailiff is under an internal investigation after a woman spent four days forgotten in a holding cell without food, water or a toilet.
Bailiff Jarrod Hankins put Adriana Torres-Flores in the cell to await transport to jail Thursday and didn’t let her out until Monday morning. No one on the fourth floor of the courthouse had heard her cries or her banging on the 2-inch-thick steel door of the 9 1/2-by-10 1/2-foot cell.
“There’s nothing at all that indicates this was done intentionally,” said Washington County Chief Deputy Jay Cantrell. “This was a very, very horrible accident.”
Torres-Flores, 38, arrested on charges of selling pirated CDs, had been ordered held by a judge because the Mexican immigrant is in the country illegally. On Monday she was taken to a hospital, where she was treated and released and allowed to go home, though she still faces deportation.
I’m wondering if the department’s response would be different if this happened to a middle class white man who wasn’t facing deportation.