A woman died after she was deprived of medical care, food and water during her 17-day stay at a jail in western New York, where she lived in “inhumane” conditions while on “constant observation,” according to two federal lawsuits filed by her mother.
India Cummings’ death on Feb. 21, 2016, was considered a “ homicide due to medical neglect ,” according to a 2018 report issued by the New York State Commission of Correction. The 27-year-old died at Buffalo General Hospital after she was incarcerated at the Erie County Holding Center in Buffalo.
Now, settlements have been reached in the wrongful death cases, according to a resolution provided to McClatchy News by the Erie County Department of Law.
Erie County has agreed to pay $3.8 million to resolve the claims against the county sheriff’s office and several deputies named in the lawsuits filed in 2017 and 2019, the resolution shows. The settlement was first reported by The Buffalo News .
Following mediation in May, and “many hours of intense negotiations,” the resolution says “all parties arrived at a reasonable outcome.” Other parties named as co-defendants have also reached settlement agreements with Cummings mother, Tawana Wyatt, that will be kept private, according to the resolution.
The settlement still needs to be approved by the court, attorney James VanDette, who represents Cummings’ mother, told McClatchy News on Sept. 9. He declined a request for comment.
The Erie County Sheriff’s Office also declined a request for comment for McClatchy News on Sept. 10, citing the pending litigation.
Both of Wyatt’s lawsuits detail how deputies documented her daughter’s deterioration in a written logbook instead of seeking medical help as they watched Cummings’ health worsen without intervening for more than two weeks.
The state’s 2018 report said Cummings died of “massive pulmonary embolism resulting from acute renal failure, rhabdomyolysis, dehydration and fracture of the humerus” after receiving care in jail that “was so grossly incompetent and inadequate as to shock the conscience.”
No one was found to be criminally responsible for her death after a 23-month investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit, the attorney general’s office announced in an October 2020 news release.
At the time, James said in a statement that what happened to Cummings “was a terrible tragedy.”
Her arrest
On Feb. 1, 2016, Cummings was taken to jail when she should’ve been taken to a hospital following her arrest during a mental health crisis, according to the lawsuits.
According to police and witnesses, Cummings left her apartment in Lackawanna and was accused of assaulting a driver and stealing his car, The Buffalo News reported.
As police pursued her, Cummings crashed into three cars and a school bus, according to the newspaper.
One of the lawsuits names the Lackawanna Police Department and several officers as defendants alongside Erie County sheriff’s deputies. The lawsuit says Lackawanna police officers used excessive force against Cummings and broke her arm during her arrest.
Cummings, while injured and experiencing a “severe, altered mental state,” was put in a holding cell at the Lackawanna Police Department before she was taken to the Erie County Holding Center, according to the lawsuit.
The department didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Sept. 10.
Cummings’ time in jail
The other lawsuit, which was filed solely against Erie County Sheriff’s Office employees, says that by Cummings’ final day in jail, she “became unable to stand and ‘became unconscious.’”
The deputies supervising her are accused of depriving her of basic necessities, including not making sure she had enough water, food or a clean environment, and ignoring her obvious medical needs.
They “documented Cummings groaning, screaming, and crying while frequently naked and lying in her cell, often in garbage, feces, urine, food and other waste for extended periods of time while she suffered from severe mental illness and disorder, a broken arm that worsened under these conditions, dehydration, inadequate nutrition and other illnesses,” the lawsuit says.
“Aware of these deplorable conditions of Cummings’ confinement, defendants recklessly did nothing,” the lawsuit continues.
The deputies violated her 14th Amendment rights, the lawsuit argues.
They allowed her “to defecate and urinate on the floor of her cell, and to lay and roll around in it and or garbage, food and other filth, while (they) observed, noted and were otherwise aware but took no action to remedy these inhumane conditions,” the lawsuit says.
Cummings was ultimately taken to Buffalo General Hospital on Feb. 17, 2016, and died a few days later as a result of her incarceration, according to the lawsuit.
Erie County’s $3.8 million settlement is the highest settlement amount the county has agreed to in about 10 years, The Buffalo News reported.
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