Dyan Crow, Carrie Delabrue and Bob Delabrue speak about their sons, who they say overdosed while being held at the Menominee Indian Tribal Detention Center. PC: Fox 11 Online
NEOPIT, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Families on the Menominee Indian Reservation are looking for answers after three inmates overdosed Saturday at the Menominee Tribal Jail.
One of those overdoses was fatal, and the inmate’s family has questions about how his death has been handled.
Carrie Delabrue says her 37-year-old son, Dallas LaTender, is the inmate who died in the Menominee Tribal Detention Center.
“You would think your kids would be safe in jail,” said Delabrue. “I thought my child would be safe in jail. Being a mother to a child who is an addict, that is your worst nightmare. To be happy that he’s in jail because he’s supposed to be safe and he wasn’t.”
The tribe says authorities administered Narcan to LaTender, but he couldn’t be revived. Narcan was able to save the two others inmates, including Dyan Crow’s 28-year-old son Sequoyah Nickey.
“I still have not received a call from the jail,” said Crow. “Nobody ever informed me. It was the community that told me.”
The families say other inmates, who have phones in their cells, were the ones who called loved ones to get an ambulance to the jail when the three men overdosed.
Despite calls to jail administrators, the families found out about the overdoses through word of mouth.
“There was so many in the community who knew what was going on before we did,” said Crow.
Delabrue says she found out her son had passed when someone texted her thoughts and prayers. Eventually, the police chief showed up at the family’s house.
“I asked him, ‘How does this happen in jail?'” said Bob Delabrue. “How does this happen? How did they get this stuff? He says it happens quite a bit. If you know this is happening quite a bit, why isn’t anything being done?”
A spokesperson for the Menominee Tribe said he couldn’t share much on what happened because there is an ongoing investigation. However, he says they are working to identify who might be responsible.
“When our son was in jail, we’d actually sleep at night knowing he was safe, thinking he was safe, and he never even was,” said Bob Delabrue.
The families claim the jail has struggled to meet medical needs and even basic ones, like providing inmates with toilet paper. But perhaps at the top of the list, they say there needs to be improved services for addicts.
Crow says her son has overdosed 18 times.
“There are so many pieces that are missing, that I was going in circles because we have Menominee Tribe, we have Menominee County and none of these programs work together,” said Crow, who is working to bring a detox center to the community.
“There needs to be a change,” sad Delabrue. “There needs to be a change. I really want there to be a full investigation on everything that happened because I don’t want anyone else to go through this.”
A tribal spokesperson says the latest report showed there were 25 people in the jail.
The FBI is among a handful of agencies aiding in the investigation.
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