As part of its ongoing investigation of deaths in county jails, which is supported by the Fund, the Tucson Sentinel tracked the case of Caleb Kenowski, whose family did not know about his death for nearly three months. Reporters Natalie Robbins and Dylan Smith found that Kenowski’s family searched for him for months, and that the sheriff’s department did not take basic steps to locate and notify his family that he was dead. The reporters compared a list of in-custody deaths from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and jail-related autopsy reports they obtained from the Medical Examiner’s office. Kenowski’s name was included in the autopsies but was never made public by the sheriff’s department.
Grantee finds that Pima County, Arizona, officials failed to properly handle inmate death
