In 2020, DeMarcus Jarrett stole seven cases of beer.

Six days later, after being arrested but without ever seeing a judge or having a bail hearing, Jarrett would die while in custody at Shelby County’s jail.

He was the fourth person to die while being held at 201 Poplar Ave. during 2020, and he was the third in a week’s time.

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Jarrett saw doctors while at the jail, but he was sent back to holding. His autopsy results say he died of internal bleeding of unknown origin with anticoagulant therapy, with a contributing factor of fentanyl, morphine and tramadol toxicity.

“His oldest child is just old enough to remember that he had a father,” attorney Brice Timmons said. “His youngest child will never ever remember his father. Shoplifting beer.”

For nearly a decade, Timmons has been involved in some form of lawsuit regarding the jail commonly known as 201 Poplar; he now represents Jarrett’s family.

“I have spent more hours on the phone with DeMarcus’ mother while she cries than I care to remember,” Timmons said. “His death was a tragedy.”

Shelby County’s 201 Poplar is a jail, not a prison, and is operated by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. It’s meant for short-term stays and pretrial detention, but there are some detainees who never get out. 

Since the beginning of 2019, 40 inmates have died while at 201 Poplar. The most recent death occurred May 1, 2023.

Out of those 40 deaths, at least 10 of them have been suicides, according to records obtained by The Daily Memphian. Causes for another five are yet to be determined, with autopsy results still pending. 

In 2019, there were four deaths within the jail, the lowest amount there have been in the last four years prior to 2023. There were nine, 10 and 14 deaths there in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. 

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The Daily Memphian did not obtain jail fatality records prior to 2019. 

In 2023 so far, three people have died while being held at 201 Poplar.

Bureau of Justice statistics from 2019 say the rate of death in local jails was 167 per 100,000 inmates. Using that figure as a baseline, Shelby County jail deaths would come in at nearly 2.5 times that rate. 

“Many detainees only receive medical/mental health care when they are incarcerated, which is a challenge.”

Public Information Officer John Morris
Shelby County Sheriff’s Office

SCSO’s Public Information Officer John Morris said the Bureau of Justice information isn’t accurate since not all jails report those numbers, which skews the findings. He also said Congress has been critical of underreporting from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“We do not accept your premise under these circumstances,” Morris said in response to questions raised by The Daily Memphian about the number of deaths at 201 Poplar. 

“Many of the detainees who died here were also in the hospital or a medical unit when they died, but that question was not asked by you. One of the deaths involved a man who never set foot in the jail, having been transported to the hospital where he died,” Morris said. “Because he had been placed under arrest, that counted as an in-custody death.”

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Calling a doctor, or a nurse

One person who died while in custody, in October 2022, was Gershun Freeman. 

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office initially declined to release a video taken of Freeman moments before his death; it was later released by Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk after Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy recused his office from the investigation.

The video showed Freeman, while apparently undergoing a mental health crisis, being subdued and beaten by officers.

SCSO records said Freeman’s cause of death was “exacerbation of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease due to physical altercation and subdual, contributory cause of death probably psychotic disorder.”

The death was ruled a homicide by coroners. Funk’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the case.

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Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said it was “unfortunate that parts of the video (were) being shown out of context,” in a statement released to media last October. Bonner’s statement also said the corrections officers involved deserve a “fair review” of the case. 

“They hold no one accountable. They take no responsibility,” attorney Timmons said of the sheriff’s office. “They accept the fact that we have a constitutionally failed jail. That makes our society more dangerous and more violent. And they treat it as a political tool.”

Freeman’s family is currently suing for wrongful death. The family is represented by a team of lawyers, including notable civil rights attorney Ben Crump and Timmons.

Timmons puts the blame directly at the feet of the current sheriff.

“As we sit here today, they are short hundreds of officers on the security side of the jail,” Timmons said. “They have under contracted for health care to the extent that nurses there are expected to conduct something like 35 sick calls per shift, which, as a practical matter, means that the nurses doing sick calls have something like seven or eight minutes, including travel time from pod to pod, to conduct sick calls.

“That literally means just a couple of minutes with a prisoner who needs medical care.”

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SCSO’s Morris said this is not accurate and that inmate exams last as long as necessary.

Since Freeman’s death in October, there have been seven more deaths of those housed in 201 Poplar.

“Our jails are bringing in more people than they did in the past,” said Wanda Bertram with the Prison Policy Initiative. “And, with a larger population, and with a population that is struggling more with mental health and with substance use, you’re going to have more needs.”

Prison Policy Initiative is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that researches mass incarceration and advocates for a more just society.

“It’s clear that jails are making investments in treatment behind bars,” Bertram said. “All these things that would make it really difficult normally to recover from an episode of mental health crisis, or make it really difficult to recover from a substance use problem, or pull out of an overdose, the conditions under which you would want someone to be able to recover, who was in a health crisis — those conditions are not present in jails.”

Morris agreed, saying 201 Poplar is a microcosm of the community and that deaths in the jail reflect what is happening outside.

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“The events mirrored what was happening in the community with the COVID-19 pandemic, the influx of opioids/fentanyl and the mental health crisis that caused increasing suicides came to Shelby County,” Morris said. “Many detainees only receive medical/mental health care when they are incarcerated, which is a challenge.”

Morris said the Shelby County mayor’s administration monitors the jail’s medical contract and performance through the county Health Department and have addressed issues relating to mental health.

Some programs that have been implemented include: A national suicide expert evaluating facilities, suicide awareness training, new screening equipment to scan for secreted drugs, creating new accommodations for patients detoxing or at rick of suicidal ideation, partnering with local agencies to assist with better mental health care and counseling by medical professionals at admission on the importance of sharing medical conditions.

“That came as a direct result of two deaths where the detainees admitted, when they were in medical crisis, that they intentionally withheld their medical conditions as they thought they would be released before the lack of medication caused them harm,” Morris said.

Morris said that 16 of the deaths at 201 Poplar were due to pre-existing medical conditions and six were due to fentanyl. One resulted in second-degree murder charges against a cellmate.