Asthmatic boy was pepper sprayed then left in cell at KY juvenile justice center

An asthmatic teen boy in one of Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers was unjustifiably pepper sprayed twice in the face on June 12 as he passively stood with his hands at his sides, refusing to enter his cell, according to documents obtained by the Herald-Leader under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

The facility’s staff explained later they had no clear understanding of when to use pepper spray, a last-resort defensive measure that Gov. Andy Beshear authorized for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice in January 2023.

Recurring misuse of pepper spray is one of several problems currently being investigated at the state’s juvenile detention centers by the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In some cases, as a form of punishment, staff have fired pepper spray onto youths through door slots while they were trapped inside their cells.

The June 12 pepper spraying at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center, in Bowling Green, triggered an hour-long asthma attack that left the boy in pain and coughing and gasping for breath in his hot, steamy cell, according to an internal investigation conducted by the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

State records reviewed by the Herald-Leader did not reveal the teen’s name or age.

The facility’s air conditioning did not work properly, employees told the internal investigators. Nearby youths called for medical aid on the boy’s behalf to a guard who kept walking by on her nighttime rounds.

Also, employees couldn’t adequately wash the burning chemicals off the boy because the facility’s faulty plumbing only had “scalding hot” water, including at the eyewash stations and in the showers, they said.

“Multiple interviewees voiced their concerns about the temperature of the facility’s water,” investigators wrote in their report a month after the incident. The water “at times was so hot that the heat could be felt radiating from the toilets.”

A hasty attempt to shower the boy only sluiced the chemicals down his body, worsening his torment, employees said. He could be heard yelling “about his buttocks and genitals ‘burning’” from the chemicals, they said.

“When someone is already burning from pepper spray and they’re in agony, the last thing you want to do is douse their skin with hot water,” nurse Sara Dobbins, who treated the boy after the spraying, told the Herald-Leader in a recent phone interview.

Unable to rely on the shower, Dobbins said, she tried whatever solutions she could find to neutralize the pepper spray, including Blue Magic hair grease, the drinking water in pitchers left over from handing out prescription pills and a saline flush intended for medical use.

“I was like, ‘What else would you have me do?’ I did everything that I could do,” Dobbins said.

“That was one of my worst nights being a nurse at the Department of Juvenile Justice,” she said. “And I really loved being there and helping those kids. But I just left feeling so defeated.”

Dobbins said she was terminated from her job as a private contract nurse at the facility on Aug. 29. That was six days after she wrote a detailed narrative about the chaos that followed the pepper spraying, which she sent up the chain of command at the department.

Dobbins said she wasn’t given a reason for her firing.

“I was just told that my services were no longer needed,” she said.

Fired, suspended, demoted

Morgan Hall is spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which oversees the Department of Juvenile Justice. Hall said Dobbins and a correctional officer, Candice France, were fired after the June 12 incident. Correctional Lt. Steven Hollifield, who used the pepper spray, was suspended for five days.

In disciplinary records, state officials faulted Dobbins for not properly decontaminating the boy after the pepper spraying. France was faulted for not checking on his well-being later as she made her rounds and he struggled for breath in his cell.

Hollifield was faulted for excessive use of force with the pepper spray.

Warren Facility Manager Kevin Foster was demoted last month to the job of youth service program supervisor at the same juvenile detention center, with a cut in salary from $98,110 to $89,190, after repeated performance failures, his supervisors told him in a disciplinary letter on Aug. 9.

Foster failed to report “significant” problems that occurred in the facility up the chain of command, and he failed to hold his staff accountable for policy violations, his supervisors said.

However, Hall disputed the accuracy of employees’ complaints about hot air and water temperatures inside the building, at least in the months following the incident.

The air conditioning is working but the temperature can’t be adjusted, so air is blowing out at 74 to 77 degrees, Hall said. Industrial floor fans and evaporated chillers were distributed throughout the building to bring the temperatures down to more comfortable levels, she said.

In August and September, temperature readings in different parts of the building ranged from the upper 60s to mid 70s, according to a maintenance chart the Justice Cabinet provided to the Herald-Leader.

As for the water, Hall said, the Department of Juvenile Justice received complaints about hot water at the facility and sent a maintenance worker to inspect the place on July 11, a month after the pepper spray incident.

He reported water no hotter than 110 degrees, with cold water temperatures in some rooms as low as 73 degrees, according to his report, provided to the Herald-Leader.

No guidance on pepper spray

Hollifield, the lieutenant who wielded the pepper spray on June 12, failed to mention the boy’s subsequent asthma attack in his official incident report, internal investigators wrote in their own report on the episode a month later.

Dobbins disclosed the asthma attack in her medical paperwork, investigators wrote.

The boy’s asthma diagnosis was noted on a form during the intake process as he arrived at the facility, but staff said they were unaware of it, investigators wrote. Had they known, the staff would not have pepper sprayed him, one of the correctional officers told investigators.

Also a concern, investigators wrote: Staff said they were not provided with clear guidance on when they should and shouldn’t use pepper spray on youths in custody.

“None of them were able to recall when (pepper spray) was permitted to be used according to Department of Juvenile Justice policy,” internal investigators wrote.

According to department policy, pepper spray, derived from the resin of chili peppers, only should be used as a defensive measure to prevent loss of life, injuries, significant property damage or a riot.

Speaking with the Herald-Leader recently, Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White said he has asked his senior staff to review video of all uses of force across the eight juvenile detention centers and provide more pepper spray training to employees so they understand its proper use.

White started running the agency April 1, just months after he retired from the Department of Corrections as deputy commissioner of adult institutions.

“I’ve spoken to our training director, and I’ve said, ‘Tell me exactly what and how are you training (with pepper spray),” White said.

“He said, ‘We’re training to use pepper spray if there is an imminent threat to safety.’ And I said, ‘Well, it looks we have some misconceptions at that particular facility, and I want you to immediately conduct supplemental training. I want you to find out why there are misconceptions — identify that — and I want you to offer fresh training to the staff members there.’ So that’s currently in the process.”

‘Very hot to the touch’

According to a review of security video and interviews with employees who were present, the boy was pepper sprayed after he refused a verbal command from Hollifield to enter his cell following the evening’s “med pass,” or distribution of prescription medicines.

The boy stood passively, investigators said. His shoulders were slumped and his arms hung at his sides with his hands relaxed, investigators wrote.

“He displayed no body language suggesting active aggression or an imminent attack,” investigators wrote.

Hollifield pepper sprayed the boy in the face at 9:59 p.m., they wrote.

The boy pulled up his shirt in an effort to shield his face, and Hollifield stepped closer and sprayed him again, they wrote. After that, the boy was escorted into his cell, falling down as he entered, they wrote.

Speaking with investigators, Hollifield said he felt ill that day, like he was going to “go down,” because of the heat, humidity and poor ventilation inside the building. Due to feeling physically weak, once the boy refused his order, he decided the best response was to subdue him with pepper spray, Hollifield told investigators.

In her interview with the Herald-Leader, Dobbins confirmed that Hollifield and another employee needed medical attention in the infirmary earlier that day because they suffered from heat-related illness due to the building’s poor climate control.

The air conditioning system hadn’t worked properly at the facility “in a very long time,” Dobbins said.

“That’s not a safe situation,” Dobbins said.

“Officers are pouring sweat from just walking around, from just standing there. The youth are complaining of headaches. They’re all feeling pretty ill. The water they’re supposed to drink is hot water. Who wants to drink hot water? You keep this up long enough and bad things are going to happen.”

After failed attempts to decontaminate the boy, he was placed alone in his cell for 58 minutes as he coughed and noisily struggled for breath.

Other youths yelled for medical aid for the boy, investigators wrote. During this period, France was passing through the unit to conduct visual bed checks, they wrote.

At 11:30 p.m., the boy told France he couldn’t breathe, investigators wrote. France tried to ask him more questions, but the boy could not answer.

Finally, at 11:35 p.m., Dobbins told France, “He needs to get out of that cell,” according to a transcript of the security video.

Dobbins asked the boy if he had asthma. He told her he did.

Correctional Sgt. Daniel Layne entered the boy’s cell to escort him to another room for medical aid.

The boy’s cell was “very hot,” Layne told investigators. The boy felt “very hot to the touch.”

He was “dead weight” and could not be lifted into the facility’s dayroom without assistance from other staff, Layne said.

Once he was removed from his cell, the boy was provided with an inhaler and a large fan to circulate the air around him, and he slowly began to recover, according to the investigators’ report.

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