By Scottie Hunter
Published: Jun. 6, 2024 at 5:47 PM CDT|Updated: 18 hours ago
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A federal lawsuit has been filed against the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office and the city-parish after a man took his own life during a mental health episode that led to his arrest in May 2023.
Kimberly Cage says her son, Kaddarrius Cage, should still be here. In May 2023, he was fighting through a schizophrenic episode when he attacked his stepfather with a knife during a round of hallucinations.
”I went to the hospital with my husband and when I came back, the sheriff’s office was already arresting him and I never got to see him and I never got to talk to him no more,” said Cage.
WAFB’s Scottie Hunter asked Cage if there was anything she wished she would have said to her son since that was the last time she would see him alive.
“In all honesty, I wish that I could have stayed with him… stayed with him, you know,” said Cage. “I think it would have been better if I could have stayed with him.”
His stepfather survived, but Cage was arrested and taken to parish prison. In a lengthy federal lawsuit, the mother alleges her son should have never been in prison in the first place. While there, the suit claims he was held without access to his five different medications and that he was not allowed to contact his family. After twelve days, Kaddarrius took his own life by hanging himself in his cell. His mother says she can’t help but think about how her son suffered in his final moments.
”I know my son and I know he was asking for help so me as a mother, I suffer and I grieve,” said Cage.
Cage says her son has had several encounters with sheriff’s deputies in the past prior to this incident and that many of them knew he should have been placed at a mental health facility instead of a prison cell. Cage says her son’s mental state was evident right from the moment that deputies took him into custody.
”They dropped the ball on my baby,” said Cage.
Attorney Joseph Long filed a civil lawsuit in federal court seeking damages. He says the death of Kaddarrius Cage, while tragic, is also far too common. Since 2012, Long says there have been about 60 deaths at the prison. Of those deaths, nine have died by suicide, and eight of them by hanging. He believes those numbers point to a much larger issue.
”He is not the first person to hang himself in these conditions. We have a crisis at the jail. The mental health component of the jail is non-existent,” said Long.
While places like the Bridge Center for Hope have opened as an option for those facing a mental health crisis in Baton Rouge, Linda Franks, an advocate with the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition, says the Bridge Center only has about 16 beds which just does not cut it for the surge in mental health needs in the capital area.
”I think that was a good faith move in a direction that I think needs to be further explored and expanded,” said Franks.
As for the prison itself, Franks believes the community can no longer turn a blind eye to what she says are injustices and the lack of resources at the facility.
”There’s a culture of looking the other way and there’s a culture of not adhering to policies that require scheduled mandatory monitoring and so this is not something that’s a one-off. This is, I would say, something that is par for the course for this facility,” said Franks.
Cage says she is coming forward to seek justice for her son but also to make sure no one else has to suffer as he did.
”They dropped the ball on my son but I’m not going to let them drop the ball on someone else’s son,” said Cage.
WAFB did reach out to Turn Key Health Clinics, the group responsible for overseeing healthcare services in the prison.
The group released the following statement:
“Mental health services are a critical part of the care we provide. We are proud of our frontline healthcare providers who work daily to provide care in the challenging correctional environment. We take every claim seriously, and we will continue to do so as this matter goes through the litigation process.”
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