Cottage Grove to pay $450,000 following death at city jail

COTTAGE GROVE, Ore. (AP) - The city of Cottage Grove has agreed to pay $450,000 following the death of a 24-year-old man in the city jail three years ago.

The Register Guard reports (https://bit.ly/1NTBs3C) in a story on Sunday that court records show an agreement last week ended the litigation.

The case started after Nathan Cooper died in 2012 of aspiration pneumonia while serving a jail sentence for possessing an anti-anxiety pill for which he did not have a prescription. A 2013 lawsuit filed by Wendy Cooper, his mother, contended that police officers and the city denied proper medical care to her heroin-addicted son.

The lawsuit said that the city violated Nathan Cooper’s constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages under state law for negligence and wrongful death.

“It goes without saying that no settlement offer or jury award will make Nathan or Ms. Cooper whole,” said Megan Yarnall, Wendy Cooper’s attorney. The lawsuit was primarily to prevent what happened to Nathan Cooper from happening to anyone else, and that city officials “will find that, in the future, the better course is to provide adequate care to inmates under their care and custody, in part by adequately staffing the (jail) and providing appropriate training to the jail staff,” Yarnall said.

But the agreement doesn’t include any requirements to change policies at the jail, said Cottage Grove City Manager Richard Meyers, and the city hasn’t updated police department policies following Cooper’s death.

Police Chief Mike Grover has said an internal investigation found officers followed policies in dealing with Nathan Cooper. The Oregon State Police also investigated and found no indication his death was the result of a crime.

Nathan Cooper was booked into the jail on April 26, 2012, but he was released the next day for medical treatment, authorities said, related to drug-withdrawal symptoms. He was ordered to return to jail two days later to complete his 10-day sentence. When he didn’t show up, police arrested him.

Wendy Cooper’s lawsuit said her son was still showing withdrawal symptoms at the time. The lawsuit said he wasn’t given any medical evaluation and had uncontrolled vomiting before being found dead in his cell on May 5, 2012.

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Information from: The Register-Guard, https://www.registerguard.com