Josh WoodLouisville Courier Journal
(This story was updated to include new information.)
This story discusses suicide and mental health issues. If you are in crisis, help is available:Call the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifelineby dialing 988 or chatting onlineat 988Lifeline.org.
Buddy Stevens was suicidal.
In the last five weeks of his life in 2022, the 39-year-old homeless man repeatedly told staff working at the downtown Louisville jail he was thinking of killing himself and, as a result, was placed on closely monitored suicide watch at least three times.
Sometimes, after he said he was suicidal, he would tell medical staff he actually wasn’t; he just wanted to get out of the jail's dorms, where he wasn’t getting along with other incarcerated men.
Those statements caused medical staff to doubt how much of a threat there really was.
But still, Stevens had a “no bars alert” placed on his file, meaning he was not to be placed in a cell that had bars, which can make it easier for prisoners to hang themselves.
Despite that alert, he was placed in a single cell with bars on Sept. 15, 2022.
Days later, in the early hours of Sept. 22, he hanged himself, as he had told staff he would.
While Louisville Metro Department of Corrections policy requires officers to check on prisoners in single cells twice per hour, no one checked on Stevens — the 11th person to die in LMDC’s custody in 10 months — for more than five hours, according to a police investigation.
The Courier Journal learned these new details about Stevens’ 2022 death from more than 1,500 pages of documents turned over to the newspaper by Louisville Metro Government last week.
Metro Government provided the documents only after being ordered to do so by a Jefferson Circuit Court judge amid a lawsuit over the records brought by The Courier Journal last year.
The documents show multiple failures that may have contributed to Stevens’ death.
They also show that one LMDC officer, Aaron Bryant, was criminally charged with misdemeanor-level official misconduct for failing to watch over Stevens the evening he died.
According to court records, Bryant pleaded guilty to the charge last week and was given a conditional sentence of 30 days in jail, which he will have to serve only if he commits another violation.
Court records also show Bryant has agreed to "relinquish any employment and certifications he currently holds" as a law enforcement officer within 10 days of the Sept. 26 guilty plea.
Maj. Jason Logsdon, an LMDC spokesperson, said Bryant was currently on administrative leave as part of his plea agreement.
His attorney, Steve Schroering, told The Courier Journal his client did not have any comment at this time.
An internal breach of policy investigation found Bryant and another LMDC officer, Jamal Amalou, both violated LMDC’s employee code of ethics and conduct policy, as well as its inmate supervision policy.
A nurse working for Wellpath, the jail’s health care provider at the time, was determined to have violated her company's policy by signing off on Stevens’ transfer to a cell with bars despite the “no bars” alert in his file.
Logsdon told The Courier Journal Bryant was suspended for three days as a result of the policy violations and Amalou was recommended for termination, but resigned. Logsdon said the nurse was disciplined by Wellpath, but he did not know specifics.
Wellpath did not respond to an inquiry from The Courier Journal.
“I’m thankful that there’s justice being done to an extent, but I don’t think it’s enough,” said Stevens’ wife, Kasey, who has struggled to find out more information about her late husband’s case from her home in western Kentucky. She hadn't learned of the death investigation's findings until The Courier Journal told her about them.
“I think more needs to be done. Because people were careless and didn’t want to do their jobs, multiple families have lost loved ones,” she added.
Stevens was one of 15 people to die in LMDC custody between November 2021 and July 2023.
Seth Gadbois, who was Stevens' public defender, said Stevens' case has stuck with him years later, even as he left Louisville for a nonprofit in New England. He said he recalled meeting Stevens earlier in 2022 after he was arrested for attempting to stay the night inside a business and had a police dog sicced on him.
"He deserved better from our systems, from before he was in jail, and certainly while he was there," Gadbois said. "... He was not treated with dignity."
"What happened here touches on so many other failures in our social systems, things broader than a single conviction can handle," he added. "We need, really, a fundamental overhaul to how we approach humanity and how we fund services that support each other and advance that care and consideration. And that's broader than a single conviction can handle."
'A sign from God' leads to jail
Stevens was arrested for the last time on Aug. 8, 2022, after police responded to a call about somebody who had broken into a seemingly vacant Old Louisville property.
“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” Stevens, who was homeless at the time, said as he exited the building, according to body camera footage Metro Government turned over to The Courier Journal. “I was just sleeping. I had nowhere to sleep. I’m sorry.”
He went on to tell police he usually goes to a shelter, but that it was too late the previous night.
“It was open and I just thought it was like a sign from God to go ahead and lay down,” he said.
He was charged with burglary in the 3rd degree, a felony punishable by between one and five years in prison, and held on a $5,000 cash bond.
On Aug. 17, Stevens was placed on his first of three suicide watches at LMDC after saying he said he was planning to hang himself if he was alone.
According to medical notes, the next day he told staff he only claimed he was suicidal to get out of the dorm he was in.
This cycle repeated several times, eventually leading medical staff to leave notes in his file with lines like “client has a recent [history] of using [suicidal ideation] for secondary gains and housing manipulation. Based on this [assessment], client does not appear to be a danger to self or others at this time.”
Stevens’ family described him as a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, who struggled when he was not taking his medication. His wife said his refusal to stay on his medications led to them separating in 2020, though they remained in contact until he was arrested.
In an Aug. 30, 2022, incident report, officers reported Stevens being repeatedly punched by another incarcerated man without fighting back.
One note in his medical file noted he had 18 different housing assignments over the course of 26 days.
As a result of his suicidal statements, a “no bars” alert was added to Stevens’ file on Sept. 1, three weeks before he died. An additional “no bars” alert was on his file from a previous stint in jail in June.
The Wellpath nurse who was found to have violated policy told investigators she did not see a “no bars” alert on Stevens’ file when she approved for him to be transferred to a single cell with bars on Sept. 15, but if she did, she would not have cleared him for a single cell with bars.
“I didn’t feel like he was in any … imminent danger to himself or anyone else,” she told investigators, pointing to Stevens’ statements about not being suicidal.
She added: “It didn’t trigger anything in me to think that he was not safe to be in a single cell.”
Later, she said: “I’m of the opinion, once you have a no bars alert, you’re always going to have a no bars alert.”
A new health care provider, YesCare, took over at the jail earlier this year.
Logsdon, the LMDC spokesperson, said the nurse is not working with YesCare at LMDC.
Jail officers violated policy
The night Stevens killed himself, no jail officers checked Stevens’ cell for more than five hours, according to a Louisville Metro Police Public Integrity Unit review of surveillance video footage.
LMDC officers are required to check on prisoners in single cells twice per hour, with the checks no longer than 40 minutes apart.
An internal LMPD breach of policy investigation found Amalou, who was not criminally charged, was determined to have falsified records by saying he conducted checks on prisoners when he didn’t.
He told investigators he was working forced overtime that night and was exhausted. He denied wrongdoing.
“I didn’t want to work that night. I tried to go home … my supervisor threatened to write me up,” he told investigators. “Maybe that night I forgot to bring my watch.”
Stevens’ death came nine months after another homeless prisoner, Stephanie Dunbar, hanged herself at LMDC. Like Stevens, nobody checked on her for hours before she took her life. And like in Stevens’ case, jail officers were found to have fabricated observation records, reporting they checked on prisoners when they did not.
In a Sept. 19, 2023, criminal complaint, LMPD Sgt. Douglas Brooks wrote that Aaron Bryant “unlawfully” violated LMDC policy "by failing to supervise and provide for the safety of LMDC Inmate, Buddy Stevens. Inmate Stevens was housed in a single cell, which required LMDC officers to perform in-person checks with inmate Stevens two times per hour but no more than 40 minutes apart."
He continued: “LMDC surveillance video showed that [Bryant] failed to perform the required checks for several hours. When officers finally checked on Inmate Stevens, he was found hanging in his single cell.”
A similar criminal complaint was drafted for Amalou. However, The Courier Journal can find no record of Amalou being charged and there is no evidence the criminal complaint was actually served.
The Jefferson County Attorney’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor crimes, did not respond to a request for comment, and The Courier Journal was unable to reach Amalou.
In a statement to The Courier Journal, LMPD spokesperson Angela Ingram said it was "the department's understanding [Amalou] resides out of state, and he is unable to be served."
The Courier Journal filed suit to get documents related to Stevens’ death after Louisville Metro Government rejected an open records request from the newspaper in June 2023.
Even after Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Jessica Green ordered Metro Government to give the files to the newspaper within two weeks on Sept. 12, the city resisted, with attorneys representing Metro Government filing an 11th hour motion last week asking Green to reconsider.
Through counsel, Metro Government argued files from the investigation should be exempt from disclosure under Kentucky’s open records law.
Since the rush of jail deaths spanning 2021-22, there have been a number of changes at LMDC aimed at improving safety.
For example, bars in single person cellshave now been covered to block tie-off points for suicides by hanging and more suicide-resistant cells have been installed in the facility.
Reach reporter Josh Wood at jwood@courier-journal.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @JWoodJourno.
