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Clackamas County jail inmate dies by suicide, authorities say

By Everton Bailey Jr., The Oregonian
Published: April 4, 2019, 8:47am

PORTLAND — A Clackamas County jail inmate severally injured himself in his cell and died in a hospital Tuesday, authorities say.

William A. Grote, 39, of Klamath Falls had been in the jail for 15 days on suspicion of violating parole when he was found unresponsive in his cell a little after 7 p.m., according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. He was later pronounced dead at the medical facility.

A county deputy medical examiner ruled Grote’s cause of death as a suicide, the sheriff’s office said. Authorities haven’t said how Grote harmed himself in his cell.

The last publicized death of a Clackamas County jail inmate involved 31-year-old Bryan Perry in November 2016. The death wasn’t reported to the public until a federal lawsuit was filed two years later alleging sheriff’s office staff and the jail’s medical contractor, Corizon Health Inc., were negligent in overseeing Perry.

He went into cardiac arrest at the jail while high on methamphetamine and bath salts and later died at a hospital from methamphetamine toxicity, the suit said.

As Perry was suffering from symptoms of an apparent overdose in his padded cell, deputies took cellphone videos mocking him and laughing. An ambulance wasn’t called until about four hours later, when a nurse discovered Perry unresponsive, the lawsuit said.

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts apologized to Perry’s family in an October 2018 statement and said the actions of the deputies “were inappropriate and do not conform to our professional standards.”

The lawsuit is still being litigated.

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