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Abstract: 

Okoi Ofem committed suicide while confined in a Chicago City Police lockup. Shortly after he was returned from a trip to a court without jurisdiction over his misdemeanor charge, he committed suicide on the second day of his detention, hanging himself with his own jeans, his belt and shoe laces having been removed. In Lapre v. City of Chicago, 911 F.3d 424 (7th Cir. 2018), the court upholds the summary judgment entered below against the plaintiff who is Ofem’s mother. This is a so-called Monell claim asserting that the City’s policies, practices and customs were deliberately indifferent and caused Ofem’s death. An employee’s possible recklessness is not enough with a Monell claim which requires direct fault by the municipality and, as noted that fault may be in the policy area, it could be a failure to adequately train, or, as charged here, it could be in the maintenance of horizontal cell bars which facilitated a hanging. As it develops, while Judge Rovner finds this a tragic event, the judge does not detect a whisper of deliberate indifference in the pleadings.

Keywords: Lapre v. City of Chicago; Horizontal Cell Bars; Monell claim

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.