Lawsuit: Mentally ill man froze to death in Alabama jail

By KIM CHANDLER
Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A lawsuit alleges a mentally ill man froze to death at an Alabama jail, arriving at a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of 72 degrees. That’s according to a suit filed in federal court by the man’s family. They say said he was kept naked in a concrete cell. They believe he was also placed in a freezer or other frigid environment. Thirty-three-year-old Anthony Don Mitchell died Jan. 26 He’d been held at the Walker County Jail for two weeks. An emergency room doctor wrote that he died of hypothermia. Lawyers representing the Walker County sheriff’s office declined to comment amid the ongoing investigation into his death.