A Deadly Virginia Jail Is Now Under Federal Investigation

WASHINGTON ― Federal investigators are launching a civil rights investigation into the conditions at Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Virginia, a facility where eight people died in less than a year and a half. The Justice Department made the announcement Monday, several months after Virginia lawmakers requested a probe.

One inmate, a mentally ill 24-year-old named Jamycheal Mitchell, died last August after spending four months behind bars following an arrest for allegedly stealing $5 in goods from a convenience store. Another man, Mark Goodrum, died there last November after he couldn’t afford a $100 bail bond in connection with a misdemeanor pot possession charge he picked up for smoking marijuana in his own home. Yet another inmate, 60-year-old Henry Clay Stewart, died there this August, two days after he filed an emergency grievance form about his medical care.