Family sues after teen’s 2022 death at Georgia detention center

ROME, Ga. (AP) — The family of a 16-year-old girl who died at a Georgia youth detention center in 2022 are suing over her death, contending she was denied care that would have saved her life.

Melanie Hogan Sluder and Ricky Shawn Curtis filed the federal complaint Tuesday in the Northern District of Georgia over their daughter’s death, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Alexis Sluder had been taken to the Elbert Shaw Regional Youth Detention Center in Dalton after her Aug. 26, 2022, arrest on drug possession and theft charges. While there, she suffered a medical emergency from drugs taken earlier in the day. However she wasn’t taken to a hospital and died about seven hours after she was processed at the facility, the newspaper reported.

“As a result of the defendants’ actions, Alexis Sluder experienced pain and suffering, including but not limited to a very long and painful death in which she convulsed, overheated, breathed heavily, writhed in pain and begged for help,” the lawsuit states.

“I didn’t get to watch her pick out her first car, go to the prom or graduate this past year with her friends. Things she had been looking forward to,” Sluder’s mother said in a statement. “I am lost without her, and not a minute goes by that I don’t think about her and what she would be doing.”

A Whitfield County grand jury indicted the former director and nurse at the detention center, along with three former guards, all of whom were named in the lawsuit and accused of violating Sluder’s constitutional rights. They were all fired and face child cruelty charges, officials said.

Others named as defendants include Gilmer County and a county sheriff’s office sergeant who took Sluder to the detention facility following her arrest.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants were aware of Sluder’s medical risks and prior drug use but did not “continuously monitor (her) health, safety and well-being” or “respond reasonably” after she became distressed and asked for help.

“Alexis experienced a painful overdose lasting over four hours, during which she convulsed, writhed in pain, breathed heavily, sweated profusely and cried to the camera surveilling her,” the complaint added.

An autopsy conducted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined the cause of death as drug toxicity from methamphetamine and amphetamine.

“The complaint seeks to redress Alexis’ wrongful death and hold accountable those who had a responsibility to help her, depriving her of basic and necessary medical care in violation of her Constitutional rights. Their objectively unreasonable and deliberately indifferent decisions led to not only the death of Alexis Sluder, but the extreme pain that she endured in the final hours of her life,” the family’s attorneys wrote in a statement.

A Department of Juvenile Justice spokesperson said they were aware a lawsuit had been filed, “however, it is our standard practice not to comment on pending litigation.”