Death of US Army veteran at DeKalb County Jail highlights gaps in mental health care
The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office is facing mounting scrutiny after the death of a 27-year-old U.S. Army veteran who was allegedly left lying on the jail floor for hours after falling and hitting his head.
Christon Collins’ mother, Jonia Milburn, of Texas, said at a press conference in Decatur on Monday that her son was having a PTSD-related episode when he was arrested and charged with obstructing police and simple battery.
By that point, he had already been hospitalized and had other run-ins with the law, but instead of being sent to veterans court for treatment, Milburn said he left the DeKalb County Jail for the last time in March “without a pulse.”
“My son laid on the floor for three hours with no care,” Milburn said, describing what happened after Collins lost his balance in the jail’s common area. “Nobody acknowledged it — no guards, no supervisors, no one other than the inmates.”
Milburn said Collins shouldn’t have still been in jail, because he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and a doctor had signed a 1013 Request Form, meaning the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office had 24 hours to transfer him to a hospital for involuntary treatment. However, the sheriff’s office allegedly said it couldn’t do it.
The request had been the family’s last hope for help.
“When he returned [from serving in the Army] on March 15, 2018, he was suffering severely,” Milburn said. “From that day forward, he has always been in need of timely and adequate care that he never received. I’ve been fighting with this from that very first night — trying to get help, trying to get people on board — and it’s been a struggle.”
Two days before the press conference, Milburn said she saw video footage showing her son’s final hours in jail. Collin’s father, brother and sisters hadn’t seen it yet, but Milburn said she wanted it to be made public.
“There are so many unanswered questions that I have, so many things that I want to know,” Milburn said.
She grabbed a large binder, where she keeps all of Collins’ records from his time behind bars, and flipped through it until she found the autopsy from the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office and the incident report that was filed on the night of Collins’ death.
Milburn claims those documents are “inconsistent” compared to the findings of an independent autopsy she had done on her son. She also questions why Collins was severely bruised and why his brain and spleen were missing when she got his body back.
While Georgia law states that a coroner or medical examiner can “take possession of any objects, including anatomical specimens” to help with “establishing a cause of death or manner of death,” Milburn alleges the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office just told her they had to hold it for a year.
Collins is one of four people who have died while in custody at the DeKalb County Jail this year.
His family has not filed a lawsuit, but the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on Collins’ case “due to the likelihood of possible litigation.”
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