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Fight with jailers led to inmate's death, pathologists say PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - A fight with jailers led to an inmate's death, says a state medical examiner, agreeing with the conclusions of two outside pathologists.
After examining autopsy records and videos, District Medical Examiner Dr. Gary Cumberland said the altercation, which inmates who saw it called a beating, contributed to the Jan. 5 death of Mark Bailey at the Escambia County Jail.
``Had he not had that struggle, I don't think he would have died,'' Cumberland said Thursday.
Technically, Bailey died of an adrenaline rush that caused heart failure, but the death is classified as a homicide because it came at the hands of other people, Cumberland said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating. FDLE agents also are looking into the death of a condemned killer at Florida State Prison in Starke after he, too, scuffled with guards July 17. Nine corrections officers have been suspended in that case, but no action has been taken against Escambia jailers.
Bailey, 39, died in the jail's holding area while several corrections officers restrained him after he apparently struck a female jailer. The Pensacola house painter had been jailed on charges of resisting an officer with violence, resisting an officer with disguise and battery on an officer.
Cumberland's findings coincide with those of two outside pathologists. They entered the case after Dr. William Bell, an assistant medical examiner who performed the initial autopsy, made no cause-of-death finding although he ruled out blunt-force trauma, internal injuries and suffocation.
Bailey's family hired Dr. Ronald Reeves, a former medical examiner in Volusia County, to conduct a second autopsy in January and he concluded the scuffle contributed to the death.
FDLE agents had a third autopsy performed by Dr. Joan Wood, the district medical examiner in Pinellas County. She is recovering from surgery and has not yet submitted a report.
Dr. Joseph H. Davis, a retired medical examiner from Miami, then reviewed the three autopsies on behalf of Bailey's family, and this week he, too, attributed the death to the fracas.
Sheriff Jim Lowman declined comment because the FDLE investigation has not yet been concluded. Two more inmates died at the jail Aug. 21, but their deaths have been ruled suicides, both by hanging.
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