*******1/15/08 NOTATION: PAPA points out in this article where it says his "hands were behind him" as many are aware that this means they had him handcuffed when they slammed him which is a common/everyday occurance in TDCJ. Please bring this to the AWARENESS of your Legislator this brutality that is a daily performance by the guards. Regardless of why an Inmate is in prison, his/her purnishment is to be in prison, Inmates are not sent to prison to be punished, brutalized, raped, beaten, tortured, medically neglected, denied food/water, and many other issues not mentioned. Flo ********
Austin Statesman, Austin, TX...Jan. 15, 2008, 1:34AM
Closer look sought into prisoner's death
Houston Democrat demands answers in Huntsville case, examination of prison health care
NOTATION: People Against Prison Abuse aka PAPA adds: Senator John Whitmire is Chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee of Texas****
By ROMA KHANNA
A Huntsville prisoner's death, ruled a homicide stemming from medical neglect of injuries he suffered in a scuffle with guards last year, prompted a state senator Monday to call for federal and local investigations into the death and an examination of the quality of health care for all Texas inmates.
Larry Louis Cox, a 48-year-old Houston man serving time in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Estelle Unit, died Feb. 6, 2007, two weeks after a confrontation with guards left him with two broken vertebrae that went undetected for weeks, according to state prosecutors who investigated the death. No one was prosecuted or punished over the incident.
The case came to the attention of Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, in December after the dead man's brother wrote the legislator.
"The death certificate says that this was a homicide and I want to know who is being held accountable," Whitmire said Monday. "More than anything, I want to know what are the conditions that allowed something like this to happen in the first place."
Whitmire on Monday sent letters to the Houston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Public Safety's Texas Rangers requesting that both entities probe the death. He also scheduled a Jan. 24 hearing of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee to examine protocols for prisoners' health care, the process of examining in-custody deaths and whether a chronic shortage of prison guards creates circumstances ripe for such incidents.
Cox entered the Texas prison system in 1990 after he pleaded guilty to burglary of a habitation with intent to commit sexual assault, and a Harris County judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Ten years later, while in prison, Cox was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years. Details of that crime were not available.
He was incarcerated in Huntsville's Estelle Unit on Jan. 23, 2007, when two guards, clearing an area for fumigation, approached Cox's cell, according to Gina DeBottis, the attorney in charge of the state's special prosecution unit, which prosecutes crimes that occur in prisons.
Cox refused to leave his cell. He kicked one of the guards, prompting the other and a sergeant to attempt to physically restrain him. Cox,
Guards took Cox to the prison infirmary, where he complained of neck pain and was transferred to Huntsville Memorial Hospital. There, he underwent a CT scan, which doctors reported was "unremarkable with no sign of fracture," DeBottis said.
A Huntsville Memorial spokeswoman, Karen Bilsing, said she was unable to comment on the incident.
The hospital discharged Cox and he returned to the prison.
There, he remained for more than two days, complaining of serious pain, some guards told prosecutors. One guard became so concerned about Cox's condition that he contacted a nurse at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, which provides health care for prison inmates.
"By January 26 his condition had tremendously deteriorated and he was taken by ambulance to Galveston," DeBottis said.
Doctors there classified Cox's condition as critical and ordered two MRIs, which revealed two broken vertebrae and a spinal fracture. Cox continued to decline and he died Feb. 6.
The Galveston Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a homicide caused by "medical neglect complicating blunt force trauma," according to the autopsy report.
A prison spokesman referred questions to UTMB. A UTMB spokeswoman declined to comment Monday.
The Texas Board of Criminal Justice's office of inspector general studied his death and passed its findings onto DeBottis' team of prosecutors. They presented the case in October to a Walker County grand jury, which cleared those involved in Cox's treatment.
For Whitmire, the probes have been insufficient.
"I am alarmed at the fact that we have had a homicide in our prison system and nothing has happened," Whitmire said. "This is a clear sign that we have problems that must be addressed and I hope the authorities I have appealed to will investigate."
roma.khanna@chron.com
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*******1/26/09 PAPA states:DO NOT forget about the first article that came out tate that Larry's hands were behind him. As previously stated, means he was handcuffed while being beaten down by the guards. This is a common occurrance in the Texas Prison System. Do NOT allow the legislators pass this information by "with his hands behind him".Thank You, Flo, PAPA*******
Star-Telegram.com: | 01/25/2008 | Inmate's death is focus of hearing www.star-telegram.com
Posted on Fri, Jan. 25, 2008
Inmate's death is focus of hearing
By JOHN MORITZ
Star-Telegram staff writer
AUSTIN -- A critical shortage of doctors and a reliance on underqualified staff members to make medical assessments may have contributed to the death of a Texas prison inmate who went several days without proper treatment after suffering a neck fracture and deep facial cuts, a legislative panel was told Thursday.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard a range of testimony on the case of Larry Louis Cox, who died in February after suffering severe blunt-force trauma while being removed from his cell in one of the Texas prison system's most secure lockups for habitually violent offenders.
An autopsy showed that Cox, 48, would likely have recovered from his injuries, and the medical examiner ruled his death homicide by medical neglect.
The committee chairman, Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, asked the special prosecutor whose office brings charges for crimes committed in prisons why no indictments resulted from Cox's death. The prosecutor, Gina DeBottis, said the case was presented to a Walker County grand jury as a death in custody rather than as a homicide.
She said her office was satisfied with the grand jury's decision not to indict. Whitmire seemed incredulous.
"Why not criminally negligent homicide?" he said, adding that the inspector general of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice "feels strongly that it was medical neglect. The medical examiner feels strongly it was medical neglect."
Whitmire backed off after Texas Rangers Capt. Tony Leal testified that based on his review of the investigation, it would be impossible to determine that someone had committed an overt criminal act leading to Cox's death.
"Looking for somebody to indict in this deal -- it's not here," Leal said. "I think this is one of those circumstances when everything that could go wrong did go wrong."
Cox was injured while resisting efforts by a team of correctional officers to remove him from his cell in the Estelle Unit in Huntsville on Jan. 23, 2007. During a scuffle, the handcuffed inmate smashed his head while being wrestled to the floor. He was later taken to a hospital where tests showed no serious injuries, though he suffered bruising and cuts on his face that required 23 stitches.
The correctional officers involved were given polygraph tests, and Inspector General John Moriarty determined that they had acted appropriately.
Cox's conditioned worsened after he returned to his cell, according to testimony at the hearing. Although he complained about being unable to move, even to use his in-cell toilet, he received only routine care from nurses and the administrative medical staff.
Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, who is a physician, expressed shock that official accounts of the days after Cox returned to his cell showed that a licensed vocational nurse was making medical assessments on his condition.
"I don't see where a [registered nurse] was notified," Deuell said while thumbing through the report. "I don't see where a physician assistant was notified. I don't see where a doctor was notified."
Ben Raimer, who heads the prison system's healthcare program, run by the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said his staff does its best under difficult circumstances. The system has only half the doctors it needs and is 18 percent short of nurses and medical practitioners, he said.
"They can go anywhere and get a better job and make more money," Raimer told the panel. "It's a hazardous environment. Most people who have other options don't want to work there."
Whitmire said state leaders need a candid assessment of the conditions so they can factor them in when the state budget is being prepared.
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Friday, Jan 25, 2008
Posted on Thu, Jan. 24, 2008
Panel mulls neglected prisoner's death
By MICHAEL GRACZYK
Prison medical staff shortages led to conditions that allowed an inmate with a broken back to lay in his own filth for two days before dying in a hospital, a state lawmaker said in a hearing into the death on Thursday. Larry Louis Cox, 48, died Feb. 6, 2007, after being transferred from the high-security section at the Estelle Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to a prison hospital in Galveston, where doctors found he had three broken vertebrae and a spinal fracture.
Prison officials believe Cox suffered the injuries two weeks before his death during a scuffle with guards in which Cox hit his head on a bunk and storage locker.
Prison officials said Cox was given a CT scan at a Huntsville hospital, but it revealed only a broken nose. They think his spinal injuries may have been overlooked, and that Cox may have aggravated those injuries during the next two days.
Before he was hospitalized, Cox told guards he was having trouble moving. He was given Tylenol because the prison clinic was closed for the night. The following morning, he was given two prescription drugs and returned to his cell. He was unable to take more medication because of his mobility problems, and a patient care assistant recorded that as a refusal to take medication. A guard worried about Cox's condition violated policy and contacted his stepmother, a nurse at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, which handles prisoner health care. She arranged for a nurse from another prison to examine Cox. That nurse found Cox badly injured, lying on the floor in his own excrement, and had him transferred to Galveston.
The Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Cox's death a homicide caused by medical neglect after he suffered blunt force trauma. No one has been prosecuted in the case and officials still disagree over who to blame.
State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said at a hearing about the case on Thursday that a shortage of medical staff was largely to blame.
"The Legislature passes the budget and makes policy. I think the shortage of personnel played a critical role," Whitmire said. John Moriarty, the prison system's inspector general, said guards were not to blame, but that prison medical staff could have done better.
"It's my firm belief we got to the bottom of what happened," he said, pointing at a lack of proper medical response within the prison. Moriarty said investigators came to the "collective conclusion ... we had criminally negligent homicide. That's why we moved forward." "The individual had deteriorated so bad," he said. "Somebody should have done something."
But Capt. Antonio Leal, a Texas Ranger assigned to examine the case after Whitmire demanded an investigation, disagreed with Moriarty's assessment. "Looking for somebody to indict in this deal, it's not here, Senator," Leal said. "There is no one criminally responsible for this man's death.
"This is just one of those circumstances where everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong... Inmates every day play the system, but no one deserved to die like this."
Ben Raimer, the head of correctional managed health care at UTMB defended prison medical staff. He said there was a 50 percent shortage of physicians working in the prison system, an 18 percent shortage of medical practitioners and an 18 percent vacancy rate for nurses.
He said the Cox case had been "reviewed and reviewed and reviewed" and that disciplinary action had been taken against some of those involved "but we're not sure they did anything wrong."
Cox was sentenced in 1990 to 20 years in prison for burglary with intent to commit sexual assault. He sentenced to another 15 years for murder in 1998 for killing his cellmate at the Stiles Unit in Beaumont.
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Please view Linda Miller's webpage link on Prison Murder of Larry Cox
http://www.geocities.com/PrisonMurder/larry_cox.html
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People Against Prison Abuse aka PAPA * sends our deepest heartfelt saddness and tears for your lost of Larry. Prayers have been spoken for The Love Ones of Larry Cox. Prayers for the too many other ones that have lost Love Ones by the brutal hands of the American Industrial Complex Prison Systems, Jails, Detentions Center, Correctional Facilities.