Cleveland County detention officers and Turn Key Health Clinics staff refused care, falsified records and mocked Shannon Hanchett as she descended into an ultimately fatal mental health crisis in late 2022, according to an amended complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on Sept. 9.
The filing comes weeks after the U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Shannon Hanchett’s widower Daniel Hanchett, ruling on Aug. 19 that there was insufficient evidence to show jail staff were deliberately indifferent. In his ruling, Jones gave Daniel Hanchett’s attorneys 21 days to file an amended complaint outlining new evidence.
Referencing closed-circuit video footage that remains shielded from the public under a federal protective order, the 73-page filing details Hanchett’s deteriorating mental and physical health as jail staff refused to provide care. As county officials sought to withhold access to the footage, the initial complaint filed in January was based on medical records.
A Norman police officer arrested Hanchett, a 38-year-old mother of two who ran a popular bakery in downtown Norman, at an AT&T store on Nov. 26 on a misdemeanor obstruction charge.
While the officer noted in their arrest report that Hanchett was exhibiting signs of mental illness, they took her to the Cleveland County Detention Center. Her family opted not to post her $1,000 bond because they feared that she might be a danger to herself or others, according to an investigation by The Marshall Project and The Frontier.
Just before 8 p.m. on Nov. 26, 2022, jail staff locked Hanchett in a temporary holding cell with no mattress, sink or toilet, the complaint alleges. While the cells are designed to hold detainees for no more than a few hours as they’re processed into the jail, Hanchett remained there for more than three days, according to the lawsuit.
Hanchett paced the small holding cell in the days following her arrest, talking to herself for hours and refused to eat, the plaintiff claimed. A light shined constantly in the cell and Hanchett did not sleep. At 4:57 p.m. on Nov. 27, about 21 hours after she was locked in the cell, video footage shows her urinating on the cell floor, according to the plaintiff.
The lawsuit also said detention officers passed by periodically with jugs of water but offered none to Hanchett and that a similar scene played out several times over the next nine days, causing Hanchett to become severely dehydrated.
In the late evening of Nov. 30, more than three days after she was booked into the jail, staff removed Hanchett from cell B130 to make space for another detainee, the lawsuit said. Instead of moving Hanchett to a more permanent cell, staff took Hanchett back to the holding cell after the detainee was processed, the lawsuit alleges, also claiming that jail staff did not open that door again for five days.
Hanchett’s condition worsened as the days progressed. According to the lawsuit, by Dec. 3, she could no longer sit up on her own. She spent most of the time in a state of catatonia on the cell floor, lying in her own waste and rotting food, the plaintiff said.
When jail staff entered Hanchett’s cell around 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 5, she struggled to stand up on her own, the lawsuit claimed. Several hours later, the filing alleged, a Turn Key Health Services nurse falsified a document stating that Hanchett refused to have her vital signs taken.
On Dec. 6, more than a week after being booked into the jail, Hanchett met via video conference with a psychologist but was too weak to sit up for the call, according to the lawsuit. The call ended after a few minutes.
On Dec. 7, with her health deteriorating rapidly, two Cleveland County detention officers attempted to remove Hanchett from the holding cell, the lawsuit said. Unresponsive and too weak to move on her own, a detention officer grabbed Hanchett by the arms and dragged her naked across the entire length of a concrete hallway, the complaint alleges.
Despite not being able to move on her own, medical staff continued to refuse to transfer Hanchett to the hospital. She was instead moved to the jail’s medical unit, where staff and detainees mocked her, according to the complaint.
“She is unable to sit up in the wheelchair, so they tilt the wheelchair back so that she will not fall out of it,” the lawsuit reads. “Nurse Natasha Kariuki and Nurse Jewel Johnson appear to share a joke and laugh as she passes by them. Even a nearby inmate joins in the laughter.”
At 9:17 p.m., less than three hours before her death, nurse Tara Doto wrote that Hanchett refused water. The lawsuit alleges that video footage does not show this exchange.
Jail staff discovered Hanchett unresponsive just after midnight on Dec. 8, less than eight hours before she was scheduled for a court-ordered mental health evaluation, according to the lawsuit. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
A state medical examiner’s report ruled the cause of death as heart failure with psychosis and severe dehydration as significant contributing factors.
The amended complaint seeks to hold Cleveland County officials and Turn Key Health Clinics liable for unconstitutional living conditions and deliberate indifference, said Daniel Smolen, a Tulsa-based civil rights attorney representing Daniel Hanchett. Smolen claims that financial incentives and a lack of staff training contributed to several deaths of mentally ill detainees at jails staffed by Turn Key Health Clinics personnel over the past decade.
“She was treated in a truly inhumane way,” Smolen said. “It [the video footage] really shows how preventable her death was.”
Jones had not set a deadline for the defendant’s response as of Tuesday afternoon. In previous filings, Cleveland County officials and Turn Key Health Clinics claimed that medical personnel evaluated Hanchett on numerous occasions and contacted personnel at the Griffin Memorial Hospital to set up a mental health evaluation.
A related lawsuit challenging Oklahoma’s mental health response in jails remains pending. In March 2023, attorneys representing four plaintiffs deemed incompetent to stand trial filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the state unconstitutionally allows mentally ill detainees to languish in jail as they await treatment. That case remains at an impasse as the attorney general’s office and Gov. Kevin Stitt disagree over whether to settle.
Keaton Ross covers democracy and criminal justice for Oklahoma Watch.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
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