Special investigations team looking into Yakima County jail inmate’s death

YAKIMA — Yakima Valley Special Investigations Unit detectives are investigating the death of a man who had been an inmate at the Yakima County jail.

Corrections officers said Antwon Treze Qualls-Thompson, 22, became unresponsive as he was being treated by medical staff around 7:40 a.m. Sept. 3, according to a news release from the county Department of Corrections, which operates the North Front Street jail. Officers had moved him from his assigned cell to see medical staff.

Jail medical staff performed CPR on Qualls-Thompson, who was taken to Multi-Care Yakima Memorial Hospital before being transferred to Harborview Medical Center, where he died Monday, the release said.

An autopsy was to be performed Monday at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, corrections Chief Bill Splawn said.

Qualls-Thompson had been booked into the Yakima County jail Sept. 1 on suspicion of second-degree identity theft and second-degree escape, according to jail and court records. A Yakima police affidavit alleged that Qualls-Thompson had taken more than $40,000 from an elderly relative’s account and, after he was arrested, tried to escape from the jail’s secure entrance and had to be shocked with an electric stun gun.

He was to have made a preliminary appearance in Yakima County Superior Court on Sept. 5, but was in the hospital at that time.

YVSIU, which includes detectives from agencies around the Valley, investigates in-custody deaths and police shootings.

Splawn said the department is conducting its own administrative review to determine of corrections’ policies were followed.