Suit Alleges Deadly Indifference At Orange County Jail

It’s been five years since Tiffany King lost her 34-year-old son. But walk through her Durham home or take a look at her arms, which are covered with tattoos commemorating her son, and it is as if Maurice King is still here. 

But one tattoo in particular reminds her that he’s not—22:22, military time for exactly when her son died on March 4, 2020. At the time, Maurice King was a federal inmate awaiting sentencing for drug charges at the Orange County Jail in Hillsborough. 

A federal lawsuit his mother filed in 2021 alleges that after another inmate assaulted him, detention officers neglected to check on King for an hour and a half while he suffered in his cell with cuts and bruises on his face and struggling to breathe. More than two hours passed before he was taken to Duke University Hospital, where he died minutes after arrival, the lawsuit alleges. 

King died from hypertensive cardiovascular disease after a physical altercation, according to an autopsy report. 

His mother’s initial lawsuit was filed against Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood, Orange County, and nine detention officers. The complaint alleges that Blackwood, who has been in office since 2014, has run a jail in which detention officers routinely buck local policies and state standards on supervising and monitoring inmates. From 2017-2020, state inspectors repeatedly cited the sheriff’s office for lax supervision and for allowing inmates to use towels, sheets, and other items to make it more difficult for detention officers to look into their cells. 

Luke Woollard, an attorney for Disability Rights North Carolina, said jails across North Carolina have similar issues with supervision and monitoring, which has led to deaths. 

“The supervision requirements are very clear and are written into the jail administration rules for a reason because it’s one of the main things that helps keep folks safe,” Woollard said. 

Claims against most of the defendants have been dismissed, leaving Blackwood and two detention officers, Thomas Linster III and William Berry Jr., as the remaining defendants. Last month, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro issued a ruling paving the way for a trial on claims against Blackwood, Linster, and Berry. Attorneys for Blackwood, Linster, and Berry are appealing Eagles’ decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. 

Blackwood did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Efforts to contact Linster and Berry were unsuccessful. 

Brian Castro, one of the attorneys for the defendants, said the trial is on hold while the appeals process plays out, and he declined to comment further. It could be months before the federal appellate court issues a ruling.

That means Tiffany King will have to keep waiting. 

“A piece of my heart is like just crumbling,” she said. 

Inside B-Pod

Maurice King, a Durham native, loved to paint, his mother said. He once did a painting of his late great-grandmother, Marion Blue. 

Tiffany King said her son and his great-grandmother were close. Blue loved all of her great-grandchildren as if they were her own children. Maurice painted Blue from memory, she said. 

Like all of his paintings, he would first draw with a pencil and then use a brush to add color to his artwork. Tiffany King said her son started painting when he was young and “he never stopped.” She keeps many of his paintings in six bins in her home. He was also a father, with two daughters and a son.

But her son also had trouble with the law. In 2017, Durham police officers arrested him on multiple cocaine-trafficking and other drug-felony charges. (Those charges were later dismissed.) A federal grand jury indicted him on three counts of illegal distribution of cocaine the following year, and he was sent to the Orange County Jail, which was built in 1925, to await trial. (Orange County officials opened a new 144-bed detention center in 2022.) King pleaded guilty in February 2020 but remained in jail to await sentencing.

He was placed in B-Pod, a maximum security section of the jail. King, who had asthma, was housed with violent inmates. In a deposition, Blackwood acknowledged it was “problematic.”  

B-Pod had a common area in full view of the control room, where detention officers kept tabs on inmates through a surveillance camera system. Behind the control room were two floors, each with 11 individual cells. King’s cell was the fourth from the right as seen in the control room on the second floor. Inmates and detention officers used stairs to get to the second floor. 

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office had a policy requiring detention officers to conduct twice-an-hour rounds, during which detention officers were supposed to look into each inmate’s cell to ensure that inmates were safe and were not breaking the rules. Detention officers had an electronic puncher they used to tap four sensors in the pod that would indicate when detention officers had completed the rounds. 

On March 4, 2020, King and inmate Tyler Grantz were seen talking in the common area of the jail. At 6:39 p.m., surveillance video showed King and Grantz entering King’s cell and closing the door. Officials say that’s when Grantz assaulted King. Over the next few minutes, three other inmates—Linwood Stephens, Darryl Bradford, and Dawan Salters—entered the cell and later left. 

Grantz left the cell at 6:45 p.m., according to the lawsuit. 

Two minutes later, detention officer Berry entered the B-Pod to conduct his rounds. Stephens walked past King’s cell and tried to distract Berry as the officer approached, and the lawsuit alleges Berry did not look into King’s cell. Berry punched the sensors, indicating he completed his rounds, and went into the control room at 6:50 p.m.

Detention officer Thomas Linster did his rounds at 7:19 p.m. Linster later said in a deposition that he saw King and Grantz sitting on two separate bunks. Linster would also later say that he last saw King alive at 7 p.m. when King was taking a shower. But surveillance footage doesn’t show King out of his cell after 6:39 p.m.

And King’s cell only had one bunk, a jail supervisor said in a deposition. Surveillance video showed that Grantz had left King’s cell before Linster started his rounds and that Linster never looked into King’s cell. 

When Linster did another set of rounds at 7:47 p.m., he reported hearing labored breathing coming from King’s cell. After he finished the patrol, he went into the control room and told Berry. He later told investigators that he didn’t open King’s cell door because he “didn’t wanna accuse nobody of something they ain’t done.” 

Berry and Linster listened on a two-way intercom for sounds coming out of King’s cell. They told authorities that they heard a groan, though Berry later reported that they thought they heard someone talking, the lawsuit alleges. Linster would say later that when he went past King’s cell, he heard King say “TL,” referring to his initials, and thought he was asking Linster for soap. Linster would say in a deposition that he heard someone say “soap” and that it could have come from any of the cells. 

At around 8:09 p.m., Berry went to the nurse’s station and retrieved an inhaler. At 8:11, Berry entered King’s cell for the first time, where he found King soaking wet, struggling to breathe, and unable to move. He also had a cut above his eye. Berry later said he saw no visible signs of assault, but the lawsuit said King’s wound was bleeding and swelling. Blackwood said in a deposition that investigators took DNA samples from blood on the walls, door, and floor of King’s cell. 

Berry radioed Linster, saying King had to get out of the cell. Linster understood the message to mean there was a medical emergency. But Berry then left King alone in his cell until 8:15 while he finished his rounds. At 8:21, Berry brought a wheelchair into the B-Pod. Another detention officer, Wilmer Gomez, joined Linster and Berry. Gomez later said he heard King tell Linster and Berry that he could not move. According to court documents, Linster tried to give King water, but the water dripped down King’s mouth. 

The officers put King in a clean jumpsuit, carried him out of his cell and down the stairs, and placed him in a wheelchair. King was finally wheeled into the nurse’s station at 8:58. 

The jail nurse called 911 at 9:06 p.m., telling the dispatcher that King was breathing hard, sweating profusely, and had a bruise on his eye. She said he was going in and out of consciousness and couldn’t move his arms or legs. In the recording of the 911 call, King can be heard crying out in pain, the lawsuit said. 

By the time he arrived at Duke University Hospital, he was in cardiac arrest. He was declared dead at 10:22 p.m.

Supervisory Problems

Hillsborough, where the Orange County Jail is located, is known as a progressive city that has attracted many famous writers, giving it a literary vibe. 

Even though King’s was the jail’s only death in the past 10 years, it faces the same chronic issues many jails face, said Woollard of Disability Rights North Carolina. 

Many of those issues boil down to concerns over supervision. Inspectors with the state Division of Health Service Regulation cited Orange County Jail five times for supervision issues in the years before King’s death. In July 2019, just eight months before King’s death, state inspectors reported that inmates were hanging sheets, towels, and other items in their cells, making it nearly impossible for detention officers to look into inmates’ cells during their rounds. 

At that inspection, state officials also noticed that one of the surveillance cameras wasn’t functioning and inmates were placing paper over light fixtures. The two-way communication system wasn’t working in two cells, according to the inspection report. 

As is protocol, the inspector wrote a letter to Sheriff Blackwood, notifying him of the deficiencies and asking for a correction plan that the state would review. Blackwood did so, and the state accepted the plan of correction. 

But Blackwood did not fix the problem, according to state records. After King’s death, Chief Jail Inspector Chris Wood reviewed surveillance video and jail records and found that detention officers were doing “non-quality rounds” on the night of King’s death–meaning that officers failed to look into each inmate’s cell window. And some inmates, including King, had obscured their windows with towels, sheets, and other items. 

Blackwood responded to the state’s investigation into King’s death by saying he would ensure that detention officers received additional training on conducting proper supervision rounds and that he would toughen policy so that detention officers comply with the supervision requirements. Further, Blackwood said disciplinary action would be taken against the officers who failed to comply with supervision requirements on the night King died. In a deposition, Blackwood said he never took any disciplinary action against detention officers, including Linster and Berry, even though he told state inspectors he would. He said he spoke with detention officers about the issue, considering that disciplinary action. In the deposition, Blackwood admitted that he did not take any of the actions he said he would in his response to state officials. 

In her February order, Eagles found that Linster and Berry had lied about their conduct that night and “knew they had repeatedly failed to look into King’s cell during their rounds despite clear policy requiring them to do so.” 

“Additionally, Mr. Berry and Mr. Linster both made inconsistent and arguably false material statements in their reports, interviews, depositions, and declarations, all tending to indicate they knew they had violated Mr. King’s rights,” Eagles wrote. 

Linster retired in 2021, and Berry retired in 2023. Their law enforcement certifications have expired, according to state employment records. 

Concerns about the jail have persisted. An August 2023 inspection cited the jail again for allowing inmates to hang sheets, towels, and other items in the cell windows. The report also said that on July 30, 2023, the day of the inspection, there were gaps in required supervision rounds in most areas of the jail–sometimes as long as 172 minutes. 

Woollard said, unfortunately, these kinds of issues are typical. 

“Just because they’re common does not mean they’re not incredibly dangerous,” he said. 

Many jails also have problems with properly classifying inmates with health concerns to make sure they are placed in areas of the jail where they will be protected and get the best care, he said. Sometimes classification issues are tied to overcrowding, which the Orange County Jail has also been cited for in the past. The state did not cite the jail for overcrowding in King’s death. 

In a 2022 report, Disability Rights North Carolina noted that more than half the jails in the state had been cited for repeated inspection failures, including Orange County Jail. Thirty-eight percent of all inspection failures in the state from 2017 to 2019 were for supervision, the report said. 

Attorneys for Blackwood, Linster, and Berry argue King had been in the B-Pod for months without any issues, and therefore, officers couldn’t have known that King could be in danger. They also argue that King did not tell officers that he had been assaulted; he only told EMS workers what happened as he was being transported to the hospital. 

In 2023, there were 46 in-custody jail deaths in the state, according to data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. It was the first decrease in seven years. The highest number of jail deaths occurred in 2022, at 77. Blackwood, who has served as president of the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, told the News & Observer that one of the reasons for the decline was that several counties, including Orange, had opened new facilities. 

Blackwood told the newspaper that jail officials are paying more attention to the problems inmates arrive with, including opioid addiction and mental health issues.

“We have put a great deal of emphasis on spreading the word about the success of these programs and the fact they are helping to reduce jail deaths,” Blackwood said.

In a January 2024 report, state inspectors cited the jail again—detention officers had failed to do twice-an-hour rounds within 40 minutes of each other, inspectors said. 

‘I Just Want Justice’

Tiffany King says she’s hardly slept the last five years. She remembers the last time she talked to her son—around 5:30 p.m. on March 3, 2020. She was going to go to the jail to give him some money, but she got sick and didn’t make it. 

“He was telling me that he loved me,” she said. Her son would always tell her that, she recalled, and would ask if she was doing okay. Sometimes, he would ask her to read him Psalms 1, verses 3-4: “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.” 

These days, she struggles to answer questions from his children—Jewels Charles, 19; Malik King Thorpe, 17; and Y’anna King Thorpe, 14. 

“If you ask my grandkids right now, like, what do they want for their birthday, what do they want for Christmas, they would tell you, ‘I want my Dad back. I miss my Dad, Grandma,’” she said. “And I said, ‘I miss him, too.’ It’s hard for the kids. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for our family.” 

As she waits for the lawsuit to work its way through the system, she believes her son is watching over the family. 

“He had always said, ‘Mother, when I get home, you’re not gonna have to worry about anything because I’m gonna be there to love you,’” she  said. But she knows he can’t. 

“I just want justice,” she said.

Michael Hewlett is a staff reporter at The Assembly. He was previously the legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal. You can reach him at michael@theassemblync.com.