Although Keirstyn was within the throes of a psychiatric episode, she was handled like a legal for lashing out.
The officer swiftly positioned Keirstyn in handcuffs and arrested her on a cost of felony assault on a regulation enforcement agent, alleging that she spat on him through the wrestle. Keirstyn remained in Broward County Sheriff’s Workplace (BSO) custody over the following 4 months and continued to behave constant together with her documented sicknesses, at instances resisting jail employees and expressing suicidal ideation.
On October 6, a Broward decide deemed her too mentally in poor health to face trial.
Per week later, whereas within the psychological well being unit of BSO’s North Broward Detention Middle, Keirstyn reportedly minimize materials from her pants and used it to hold herself from the body of her cell bunk. A jail employee discovered her unresponsive in her room, and she or he was pronounced lifeless 13 minutes later, at 2:30 pm on October 13, 4 days shy of her twenty third birthday.
Keirstyn’s father Jason Bucy and Broward County’s lead public defender Gordon Weekes now allege Broward jails have exhibited a sample of callousness when coping with inmates who’ve psychological well being situations.
“Ms. Bucy’s unlucky loss of life illustrates yet one more failure of the psychological well being system in Broward County,” Weekes wrote in an October 26 letter (hooked up under) to Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony and Hollywood Police chief Chris O’Brien. “She was arrested as a result of she was sick, and she or he finally died as a result of the system designed to guard her failed.”
Weekes famous that on the time of her arrest, Keirstyn was underneath involuntary dedication pursuant to the Baker Act, a regulation that enables folks to be detained in a psychological well being facility in opposition to their will for as much as 72 hours if they’re deemed to be a risk to themselves or others. Weekes questioned why the Hollywood Police Division eliminated a affected person underneath therapy from the hospital, “the place greatest outfitted” to take care of her sickness.
“It’s incomprehensible to consider that regulation enforcement professionals couldn’t distinguish between a manifestation of an acute psychological well being episode that befell in a psychological well being facility from legal habits,” Weekes writes, describing Keirstyn’s loss of life as “strikingly avoidable.”
As soon as she was transported to the jail, Keirstyn ought to have remained underneath shut supervision in gentle of her extreme psychiatric illness and her longstanding historical past of self-harm and suicide makes an attempt, Weekes says.
His letter calls for that BSO evaluate its insurance policies relating to monitoring mentally in poor health and suicidal detainees.
Keirstyn had a deep appreciation for music and cherished taking part in as a percussionist.
Photograph supplied by Jason Bucy
BSO didn’t reply to questions in regards to the jail’s psychological well being or suicide watch insurance policies. In an e-mail to New Occasions on October 26, spokesperson Carey Codd wrote {that a} BSO inside affairs unit is reviewing the incident. The sheriff’s workplace denied that Keirstyn was underneath energetic suicide watch when she took her life.
Keirstyn’s father is looking on the sheriff’s workplace to make “vital modifications” in the best way it treats mentally in poor health inmates.
“To begin with, when you’ve bought cameras, why aren’t you watching the rattling digital camera?” Jason Bucy asks in an interview with New Occasions. “They might have seen her chopping her pants… They may have stopped it earlier than it even began.”
In line with Weekes, the 22-year-old’s suicide was a part of a systemic failure of psychological well being protocols in Broward jails. Up to now yr and a half alone, Weekes has despatched a number of letters to Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony relating to deaths and accidents amongst folks with psychiatric issues in his amenities.
In January 2021, Weekes wrote to Tony a few 43-year-old man in custody with a historical past of psychiatric points who was allegedly pepper sprayed within the face and tasered into submission by an officer throughout a psychological well being disaster. The person sustained an irreversible mind damage and was left in a vegetative state.
Months later, in August 2021, Weekes contacted the sheriff a few July incident by which a deputy was accused of pouring bleach and different chemical substances into a person’s cell in retaliation for spitting in his face. The person, who had a historical past of psychological sickness, was taken to the hospital in “grave situation,” the general public defender mentioned.
Then, in December 2021, the general public defender referred to as consideration to the case of a 44-year-old man who allegedly tried suicide underneath jail employees’s care and died in a hospital a number of days later. In one other letter to the sheriff, Weekes mentioned that the person’s loss of life mirrored a “disturbing development” in Broward detention facilities and marked a minimum of the third unnatural, seemingly preventable inmate loss of life in BSO jail amenities in 2021.
Different incidents embrace an inmate who minimize his penis off after being left unsupervised in isolation in September 2018, the general public defender says. In line with Weekes, a 17-year-old affected by a psychiatric dysfunction dedicated suicide in BSO custody the next yr.
“Sooner or later in time, we have to solid the sunshine of transparency… and begin holding people accountable,” Weekes tells New Occasions.
Screenshot of Keirstyn Bucy by way of Fb
Jason Bucy remembers his daughter as a vibrant lady who might play the drums earlier than she might stroll.
Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Keirstyn had open coronary heart surgical procedure at 5 days outdated to deal with a congenital coronary heart defect, and she or he was placed on a laundry listing of medicines at beginning. She confronted medical hardships in early childhood, however got here out with an indomitable spirit.
“She wasn’t afraid of something,” Bucy remembers with fun.
Bucy says that as an toddler, Keirstyn would crawl on him and play on one of many many drum units scattered round their home on the time.
“When she was within the sixth grade, I had a possibility to show her with the winter percussion line,” Bucy says. “That child could be so meticulous in her half, she’d play 5 measures again and again and over till she bought it excellent.”
As Keirstyn grew older, her father started to note some issues have been completely different about her in comparison with different youngsters. Except for being extra torpid than others, she took specific delight in lining up her toys and sorting them by colour. When she was sufficiently old, she all the time ensured her bookshelf was completely organized. Keirstyn additionally displayed behavioral points, together with sudden outbursts and an incapability to know penalties at instances.
Nonetheless, the daddy remembers Keirstyn embraced her love for music –– and was very specific about it. She ultimately went on to play the whole lot from marimba to vibraphones to the bells in class bands.
And he or she cherished to journey horses, fish, and hunt together with her dad.
At 12, Keirstyn was recognized with high-functioning autism, Bucy says. Docs later decided that she additionally had borderline persona dysfunction and bipolar dysfunction, amongst different diagnoses.
When she was 15, Keirstyn moved from Indiana, the place she lived together with her mother, to North Florida to remain full time together with her father. Throughout the first few months, Bucy says Keirstyn started to undergo cycles of “excessive highs” and “low lows.” She would go from being a happy-go-lucky lady to chopping herself within the rest room at college, her father says.
Keirstyn was subjected to Baker Act proceedings dozens of instances within the subsequent years, Bucy remembers. He admits he would typically beg psychological well being amenities to maintain his daughter of their care as a result of he believed she was safer there.
“She could be extremely offended and hostile and would lash out for a few weeks, after which, at some point, it could be just like the swap was flipped: ‘I like you Daddy. I am sorry. I am getting higher,'” Bucy says.
At 18, Bucy says, Keirstyn dropped out of faculty and left dwelling. She remained homeless for a lot of her brief grownup life, whereas nonetheless preserving involved together with her father occasionally. Courtroom information listing her most up-to-date deal with as “at giant.”
After she was arrested in June, she rang her father up from behind bars.
“My little lady referred to as me and requested me to bail her out of jail, and I mentioned no… I mentioned you are within the most secure place you will be,” Bucy remembers.
