Koochiching County Jail Suicide Highlights Lapses In Care Of Mentally Ill
A 28-year-old mother died after jailers failed to take basic precautions.
When Kathryn Schneider turned herself in last March on a drunken-driving warrant, her history of mental illness, drug use and a previous suicide attempt was well-known to the Koochiching County jailers. Yet a little more than two hours later, the young mother was found hanging in an unsecured cell block, and records show that her jailers failed to take the most basic precautions to prevent her death.
Schneider’s family filed a federal lawsuit in Minneapolis that accuses Koochiching County Sheriff and the jail of "deliberate indifference" surrounding Schneider’s care.
