Families, former medical staff, and people incarcerated at SCORE say the jail is plagued by inadequate care, filthy conditions, and hostile staff.
By Andrew Engelson
Deaken Sullivan was in high school in the late 1990s when he attempted to sneak into a Tom Petty concert at the Gorge amphitheater. In the process, he fell off a cliff and nearly died. Sullivan was evacuated, received medical care, and got a prescription for oxycodone, which was widely marketed in the 1990s under the brand name Oxycontin. Like many others, Sullivan quickly developed an addiction to the drug.
After the accident, Sullivan ran into trouble with the law and eventually became homeless. On July 30, 2024, he was booked into the South Correctional Entity, an 800-bed jail in South King County commonly known as SCORE. The following day, he died in custody from “acute fentanyl and methamphetamine intoxication,” according to the King County Medical Examiner.
“He was funny. He was a comedian. He was very athletic. He loved football,” said Deaken’s sister, Stacy Bradley. “He was very popular. The girls loved him.”
Bradley, who lives near Phoenix, said of her brother’s death, “I don’t understand how someone just dies in custody. That doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t compute—how does he just die?”
Sullivan was one of 11 people who have died in custody at SCORE in the past two years.
Though the jail is owned and operated by the cities of Auburn, Burien, Des Moines, Renton, SeaTac, and Tukwila, more than half its inmates are from other cities that contract with the jail, including jurisdictions ranging from the Port of Seattle to Bellevue and Bellingham.
The city of Seattle entered into an interlocal agreement with SCORE last year to house some misdemeanor offenders at the jail. But Callie Craighead, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office, said the city has not begun this pilot project, which would cost the city $2.8 million for 20 beds if implemented.
An agreement in November between the city of Seattle and King County now allows the Seattle Police Department to book more people for misdemeanors in the county’s downtown jail, alleviating the potential need for beds at SCORE. The mayor’s office said SPD has booked about 1,000 people into SCORE in the past year, almost exclusively on arrest warrants from jurisdictions outside Seattle. “Booking in the King County Jail will remain the preferred option for the City,” Craighead said.
In the past three months alone, two people have died in custody at SCORE, and one died immediately after being released: Garrett Floth on November 1, Dwight Benson on January 27, and Patricia Ryden on February 1. Benson died at Valley Medical Center in Renton on the day he was released from SCORE. SCORE director Devon Schrum declined to respond to questions about the recent deaths, saying that she could not comment on any ongoing investigation.
Over the past few months, PubliCola spoke with family members of people who have died at SCORE, a former member of the jail’s medical staff, and several people who have been incarcerated at SCORE. They say the jail has inadequate medical care, substandard detox procedures, and filthy living conditions.
Bradley has requested documents from SCORE related to her brother’s death, but has not received them.
Bradley had lost touch with her brother by the time he was incarcerated at SCORE, but said she still loved him and had hoped he’d eventually get into recovery. “You think you’re prepared for the call,” she said. “But when it comes, you’re just totally not prepared. It rocked my world. He was my baby brother.”
Bradley said she called SCORE not long after her brother’s death to ask how often guards checked in on her brother and what, if any, medical or detox care he received. She said the staff member she spoke to was defensive. According to Bradley, the staffer told her someone had checked on Sullivan four times, that he was given aspirin, and that he refused food and water. At that point, Bradley said, she asked if medical staff had given him an IV to replace lost fluids and electrolytes. Bradley said the staff member told her, “He wouldn’t need an IV,” then said he couldn’t discuss any more medical details with her.
Schrum said, “SCORE expects all staff to always treat everyone with compassion and professionalism regardless of the circumstances.”
“The most unprofessional place I’ve ever worked in my life”
Lisa Rogers, a registered nurse for 27 years, worked the night shift at SCORE between March 2022 and October 2022 as an employee of WellPath, a national health care contractor that provides medical care at SCORE.
“It was the most unprofessional place I’ve ever worked in my life,” Rogers said of SCORE. “It was filthy, and the people were very unprofessional in the way that they spoke [and] the way that they made decisions based on patient care.”
Rogers said she had little assistance caring for the more than 400 people incarcerated at SCORE. There were two licensed practical nurses on the night shift, but Rogers said they were mostly responsible for administering medications. (LPNs go through a shorter certification program than RNs and usually do basic tasks under supervision).
Guards and other staff pressured her to treat people in the jail as inmates rather than patients, she said. “It was not quality nursing. It was quantity nursing. They didn’t care, as long as there was a nurse there that had a license. Rogers recalled being told to “just page through” new inmates’ three-page intake form without seriously assessing people.
“They’re just trying to get people booked as quickly as they can,” she said. Continue reading “Eleven People Have Died at this South King County Jail in the Last Two Years. Their Families Are Demanding Answers.”