Another former Walker County Jail employee pleads guilty in inmate's death
Another former correctional officer for the Walker County Jail has agreed to plead guilty to charges related to the 2023 death of inmate Anthony "Tony" Mitchell.
In a plea agreement filed Tuesday, Benjamin Shoemaker agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy against rights as well as two counts of deprivation of rights.
According to the plea, Mitchell was arrested on Jan. 12, 2023, after he allegedly fired a gun at deputies who had arrived at his property to perform a mental health welfare check.
Upon arriving at the jail, Mitchell reportedly "could not walk or stand on his own" and was "disoriented, non-combative, and could not follow instructions."
He was housed in cell BK5, commonly referred to as "the drunk tank."
"BK5 depended on officers to escort them to a toilet or shower and relied on officers to bring them food and water," the plea agreement states. "BK5 was notoriously cold during winter months and the temperature on the bare cement floor was even colder."
Mitchell was then wrapped in a "suicide smock" despite there being no indication that he was suicidal and taken by wheelchair to a medical unit.
Upon arrival there, the jail's Health Services Administrator told Shoemaker and several co-conspirators that "she wanted to wait" to perform a "fit for confinement screening" on Mitchell based on instructions from "Co-Conspirator #1" to deny the screening.
The plea states that Co-Conspirator #1 was not typically involved in whether inmates received medical evaluations and that they were never flat-out denied.
When Shoemaker later asked why Mitchell was being treated differently from other inmates, Co-Conspirator #1 said they would "handle it," or words to that effect.
Shoemaker brought up Mitchell's health needs to the Nurse Practitioner who was reportedly dismissive and not concerned.
Shoemaker "had previously joked with the Nurse Practitioner about correctional officers punishing detainees for their supposed misbehaviors by mistreating them," reads the plea agreement. "Consequently, Defendant SHOEMAKER understood that the Nurse Practitioner didn't view Individual # 1 or any punishment he would suffer as her problem. Similarly, defendant SHOEMAKER had no concerns that any of the other medical staff would object to conditions in which Individual #1 was kept or how he was treated because defendant SHOEMAKER knew the medical staff were aware that correctional officers mistreated other detainees without taking steps to alert proper authorities."
Shoemaker claims that, to the best of his knowledge, Mitchell was never medically evaluated until the morning of his death just two weeks later due to he and several co-conspirators "falsely telling medical staff" that Mitchell "was too combative to be evaluated when in truth that was not the case."
"Calling [Mitchell] 'combative' was an excuse to mistreat him and to purposefully deny him medical care," the plea states. "There was no conduct that could have been committed by [Mitchell] that would have justified the denial of medical access since the Jail could manage or control any behavior that [Mitchell] might have exhibited."
When Shoemaker or his co-conspirators would comment or show concern about Mitchell's condition, another member of the conspiracy would dismiss them, saying things like "(expletive) him, he gets what he gets since he shot at cops."
Several comments were also made that Mitchell should have been killed so that they (correctional officers) didn't have to deal with him and that they would have killed him if they had responded instead of deputies.
The plea states that Shoemaker and his co-conspirators were hoping to profit off of Mitchell's condition by using it as an example of the hardships they faced on a daily basis.
The hope was that, after seeing how "crazy" and "disgusting" some inmates were, their superiors would then increase their pay.
"This plan was undermined when a jailer that was unaware of the plan had the garbage and left-over food in Individual #1 's cell cleaned out prior to the County Commissioner's visit," the plea states. "Defendant SHOEMAKER berated this jailer for cleaning out Individual # 1 's cell because he was worried that CO-CONSPIRATOR # 1 was going to be angry at him if the plan failed. Consequently, he adjusted their plan by convincing a different detainee in the Jail's booking area to act "crazy" when the County Commissioner visited. After this detainee did so, defendant SHOEMAKER rewarded him with a pack of honey buns."
On the morning of Jan. 26, Shoemaker was reportedly told that a nurse had ordered that Mitchell be transported to a hospital as soon as possible and that he could die if he was not.
When one of his co-conspirators brought it up, Shoemaker reportedly responded, "I'll tell you what, next time you're on the toilet taking (expletive), I'll call you to bother you with something unimportant."
Mitchell was eventually transported to Walker Baptist Medical Center Hospital in the back of a patrol car. Doctors would later take him off of life support at the request of his mother.
Mitchell's family filed a federal lawsuit after video came to light showing deputies carrying Mitchell to a car. The family says he spent two weeks in a holding cell and was possibly placed in a freezer. The employee who had this footage was fired by the department.
Shoemaker is also accused of assaulting two other inmates.
The first assault reportedly occurred on Nov. 17, 2022. He is accused of putting the inmate in a headlock while other officers punched him to teach him a lesson for a previous escape. Shoemaker had the inmate鈥檚 blood on his clothes, and at a meeting later that night, he was held up as a role model because of his bloody garments. The plea claims Shoemaker was promoted to Lieutenant to reward him for his actions.
The other assault happened on Jan. 12, 2023, which was just weeks before Mitchell鈥檚 death. Shoemaker is accused of tackling an inmate in his cell because he would not comply with their orders. After placing him in a restraint chair, Shoemaker and another jailer repeatedly punched the inmate in the stomach and head.
Shoemaker faces a maximum punishment of no more than life imprisonment, a fine of no more than $250,000 and supervised release of no more than five years.