On June 22, 2022, 56-year-old Robert Bracey was arrested by Stamford police during an afternoon raid for possession of narcotics and possession with intent to sell. Police had seized three ounces of fentanyl from Bracey, along with nine thousand dollars in cash. He was arrested and initially taken to the hospital because of his physical condition. From there, he was booked into the Bridgeport Correctional Center. Twenty-four hours later, he was dead.

When he was taken into custody, Bracey was suffering from both opiate withdrawal and ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative disease that paralyzes muscles and eventually leads to death. Prior to his ALS diagnosis, when he was in his late forties, Robert was an athletic, strong, helpful member of the family and community, according to his younger brother Beinson Bracey.

“My brother was my superhero,” Beinson said. “He was helpful, and he was kind, and he was selfless. He was strong, he was probably the strongest person in our community.”

Robert had been an athlete and got Beinson into sports early in his life; on weekends he would help his family with chores or house painting. Old photos of Robert show a young, healthy, athletically built man – a far cry from his mugshot snapped by Stamford police that showed a frail, extremely thin man who, according to reports, had difficulty eating and swallowing due to his disease.

However, ALS sent him down a road of addiction. According to Beinson, Robert was prescribed opioids for pain, which sent him spiraling into heroin and fentanyl addiction, got him in with the wrong people, and eventually led to him selling the drug, resulting in his arrest and subsequent death. 

“Between the time he was arrested and the time he died, it was probably a two- or three-day turnaround,” said Beinson Bracey, Robert Bracey’s brother. “To us, there was negligence all around the board.”

Robert Bracey’s death was investigated by Disability Rights CT, which released its report in 2025. The investigation found that DOC staff failed to provide Robert Bracey with adequate medical care for his ALS, such as providing thickening agents for his food and drink so he could consume them, but also failed to address his opiate withdrawal needs, according to DRCT’s investigation summary.

“Although nursing staff documented the completion of a clinical opiate withdrawal scale score, video footage showed that staff never examined, spoke to, or had face-to-face contact with [Robert Bracey] in order to complete this assessment,” DRCT wrote. “When staff documented information about John Doe’s opiate withdrawal, staff backdated the encounter in John Doe’s record in violation of DOC policy.” 

The investigation also found that when staff discovered Robert “lifeless in his cell,” DOC staff did not attempt lifesaving measures, like performing CPR, administering Narcan, or even calling for help. Bracey’s family has now filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Correction for deliberate indifference to medical needs, wrongful death, and negligence. The lawsuit is ongoing.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Robert Bracey’s death as due to “complications of acute and chronic use,” fentanyl intoxication, and fluid in his lungs.

“They didn’t give him the necessary medication. They knew he was having heroin withdrawal,” Beinson continued, saying that Robert was not properly monitored according to withdrawal protocols. “Then, when they found him unresponsive, it took them nineteen, twenty minutes before they administered any type of lifesaving measures.”

But Robert Bracey is not the only person to die while in police custody shortly after arrest. A review of investigations conducted by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) – which is tasked with investigating deaths while in police custody – shows four other deaths due to opiate withdrawal or overdose while in police custody shortly after the individual’s arrest, typically within two to three days.

Joseph Torrice Jr. was arrested by Manchester Police on July 8, 2022, for interfering with an officer and possession of narcotics. He died while in police custody two days later. According to the OIG report, Torrice reported he had used drugs prior to his arrest but also had a prescription for suboxone, a prescribed drug meant to stave off the effects of opiate withdrawal. Officers found him unresponsive on the floor of his cell; the investigation determined the cause of death was “withdrawal from opioids and other drugs,” which caused a heart attack.

Robert Chambers was arrested on February 3, 2022, by Norwich Police on firearms and narcotics charges and died on February 3 when he ingested a fatal amount of fentanyl and had a seizure. It was later revealed that Chambers had managed to sneak fentanyl into the jail cell via a secret pocket in his sweatshirt. The OCME determined the cause of death was active fentanyl intoxication combined with recent cocaine use.

Ashley Morin was arrested on August 19, 2024, shortly after giving birth, for violation of a protective order, and she was remanded into DOC custody at York Correctional Institution. At the time of her arrest, she had been drinking heavily and tested positive for cocaine. Five days later, guards were alerted by her cellmate that she was unresponsive. The OCME determined the cause of death as acute intoxication due to fentanyl, chlordiazepoxide, and xylazine.

On April 5, 2024, Linda Praylow was arrested by Hartford police on a re-arrest warrant. At the time of her arrest, she indicated she had recently used fentanyl. During her time in holding, she experienced severe withdrawal symptoms. In the early morning hours of April 7, Praylow collapsed onto her mattress and was unresponsive. Autopsy determined that she died of acute fentanyl intoxication, combined with pre-existing medical conditions, and that she likely consumed fentanyl while in police custody.

The OIG is currently investigating the death of a Waterbury woman who was taken into custody on several warrants and had tested positive for heroin and fentanyl. She died in her cell just one day later. She appeared to be sleeping at the time. That report is forthcoming. But there have been many other overdose deaths that were under investigation by either the OIG or the State Police.

These deaths are the result of either opiate overdoses or the effects of withdrawal combined with pre-existing medical conditions, according to the reports. Sometimes those symptoms can be easy to spot; other times they are not. And while the death of Robert Bracey is allegedly due to a lack of proper medical care — particularly as he was affected by ALS and withdrawal — most the OIG reports found police officers responded quickly and appropriately when they discovered the individual was unresponsive, and that the police were not the cause of death.

Although the cases outlined in these reports involve deaths shortly after an individual has been taken into custody, when accounting for overdose deaths of individuals who have been within the DOC system for longer periods of time, it becomes vastly more complicated; it not only involves the crime of smuggling drugs into the state prison system, but also how the body reacts to opioids after a period of not having them.

Between 2022 and 2025, seventeen inmates in Connecticut’s correction system have died from drug overdoses, according to Inspector General Eliot Prescott. Questions about how these deaths happen, the circumstances surrounding them, and what actions can be taken in the future leave few easy answers.

The death of individuals shortly after being taken into custody, according to the OIG reports, is due to either overdose from the individual having snuck in or obtained opioids while in jail, or from medical complications associated with withdrawal. 

Robert Bracey clearly had known medical issues unrelated to his drug use, which made him extremely vulnerable to the effects of withdrawal. 

Joseph Torrice Jr., on the other hand, did not appear to have any known pre-existing medical conditions, although police transported him to Manchester Hospital for an evaluation before placing him in a holding cell. Torrice had admitted to police that he’d used a substantial amount of heroin and fentanyl prior to his arrest, but, according to the investigation, he appeared okay during the afternoon leading up to his death.

The officer on duty, who monitors prisoners via camera and in person every thirty minutes, had spoken with Torrice a little after 3:30 pm; Torrice was in his cot and appeared to be sleeping a little before 5:30 pm. It wasn’t until roughly 5:45 that the officer saw that Torrice appeared to have fallen out of his bed. The officer went to the cell and became aware that it was a medical emergency. 

Torrice’s heart had stopped while he was lying in bed, something that would be virtually impossible for an officer on duty to observe. According to the medical examiner, “the most likely scenario was that Torrice’s withdrawal from long-term drug use triggered the cardiac arrest that caused a lack of oxygen to his brain that ultimately resulted in his death.” 

“Often at the time of the arrest the individual is under the influence of, often times, multiple drugs and some of them are very powerful, and they likely have been using them for a long time,” Prescott said in an interview. “So, with that level of addiction their bodies have become acclimatized to them, so when they get arrested and they immediately cease using them, their body reacts relatively quickly. Not immediately, but relatively quickly.”

“These are people who have a myriad of other health issues, some caused by their long-term narcotic use, but some may be unrelated or exacerbated by it all. They may have cardiovascular issues,” Eliot continued. “They’re already under a lot of stress physically.”

Indeed, all the individuals who passed away shortly after arrest had extensive histories of opioid use, sometimes for decades, meaning that their bodies would undergo extreme stress from not having the drug, making them susceptible to extreme withdrawal symptoms and potentially for overdose if they are able to get narcotics while in custody.

Opioid withdrawal is commonly known to be extremely uncomfortable, resulting in diarrhea, vomiting, muscle pain, and anxiety – symptoms that many individuals will do almost anything to avoid. However, it is generally understood that those symptoms are not life-threatening; the only drugs in which withdrawal is life-threatening are alcohol and benzodiazepines. 

But Dr. Benjamin Howell of the Yale School of Medicine, who specializes in addiction medication and treatment, says that’s not the right way to frame the effects of opioid withdrawal, largely because of other medical conditions.

“Somebody who has a medical condition, say they have diabetes or kidney disease, experiencing those types of symptoms can lead to derangements that can be life threatening,” Dr. Howell said. “You add in another medical condition that may not be known about, and you absolutely can put someone in a situation that is highly morbid, a risk to their health.”

Part of the problem for police in arresting and jailing someone who may be going through withdrawals is obtaining an accurate medical history, according to Prescott. 

“Some police departments do better jobs than others doing a medical intake and getting as much information as they can,” Prescott said. “It’s a complicated problem because these individuals are so complicated medically, and they’re not the best self-reporters, or medical historians for themselves, so there’s a lot of unknowns.”

Those severe withdrawal symptoms, however, can lead to death in another way; in an effort to avoid the severe discomfort, the individual will, one way or another, obtain opioids while in custody, having either snuck it in on their person or in their clothes, or obtained it from someone else while incarcerated. Part of the problem with that, according to Dr. Howell, is that their tolerance for opioids begins to decrease rapidly once they stop regularly using, increasing their risk of overdose.

“It’s a perfect storm for a high-risk exposure and high risk of overdose,” Dr. Howell said. “Pretty quickly, within 24 or 48 hours, if they’re not using, their tolerance starts to go down, so even if they’re using the same opioids as before, the risk of overdose or getting too much for their body to handle, goes up.”

While in custody with the Hartford Police Department, Linda Praylow was experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms, including pain, vomiting, restlessness, and diarrhea, to the point where she had to be transferred to a different cell. Praylow indicated to her cellmate that she’d been using for over twenty years. According to her medical history she was 49-years old, had used fentanyl before her arrest, and had a history of post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, hypertension, arthritis, and asthma.

The medical examiner concluded, based on the levels of fentanyl in her system and the time of her arrest, that she must have somehow obtained the drug while in holding. That, combined with her cocaine use, the effects of withdrawal on her body, and preexisting coronary artery disease and cardiovascular disease, led to her death.

The OIG report indicated that officers on duty had not properly documented Praylow’s condition and should have been more attentive to her distress. According to the report, officers denied her juice and made her wait for toilet paper. She was lying on her back on the cell floor for fifteen minutes before anyone noticed.

“This is a sad case,” former Inspector General Robert J. Devlin Jr. wrote in his analysis. “Given the fact that she had been sick earlier and reported using drugs just before her arrest, the detention staff should have done more to address her needs. She should have been taken to the hospital on Saturday evening when Detention staff had to clean her cell, notwithstanding her statement that she did not want to go.”

“The police were probably frustrated with Praylow, but I am making no finding regarding neglect because, even if that is true, it was her use of drugs and underlying cardiovascular disease that caused her death,” Devlin concluded. 

Part of the problem is also that an opioid overdose results in a loss of consciousness and lower respiratory rate that can lead to death, but it can also occur up to three hours after ingestion, and, unless someone is watching closely, the individual can sometimes appear to be asleep.

“Because there are cameras in most police department cells – and that’s a big difference with corrections, in corrections you don’t have cameras in inmates’ cells – they’re monitored,” Prescott said. “Sometimes it looks like they’re sleeping, and they go into respiratory arrest, cardiac problems arise because of the withdrawal symptoms, and they code.”

“If you’re just observing someone, there is a chance you could assume they’re asleep,” Dr. Howell said. “You can see if someone is breathing. If you’re just doing a drive by — are they in their cell or not — you might miss an overdose.”

That is essentially what happened with Ashley Morin when she passed away at York Correctional Institution: Although guards were observed on camera doing their routine fifteen-minute observations of inmates, she appeared to be asleep. Even her cellmates thought she was asleep until one of them touched her and she was cold.

In her system was a lethal dose of fentanyl and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer known as “tranq” that, more and more, is being mixed in with heroin and fentanyl. Typical opioid overdose treatments like Narcan don’t work on xylazine, and many users are likely not even aware of its presence, but it can slow the respiratory system and affect the user’s central nervous system.

Morin had been in custody for five days; she had no drugs on her and obtained them while incarcerated, a persistent problem that has resulted in the overdose deaths of seventeen DOC inmates since 2022, and for which only now are lawmakers taking limited steps to address.

“Use of illicit drugs in the DOC is an obvious problem. Addressing this problem poses significant investigative challenges,” the OIG report said. “In the present case, no credible evidence was developed as to how or when Morin obtained the drugs that killed her.”

As indicated before, the drugs detected in the bodies of those who died shortly after arrest while in police custody were not limited to opioids: alcohol, cocaine, xylazine, and benzodiazepines were also detected, the combination of which all lead to a greater likelihood of overdose death or death from complications associated with withdrawal. 

Fentanyl was present in every case, which, according to Chambers’ toxicology report, “is readily available due to low production cost and its high potency,” and “is often sold as heroin and is commonly found in combination with other illicit drugs.” In 2023, xylazine was found in nearly a quarter of Connecticut’s illicit drug supply, but there are new and emerging contaminants on the street. 

Dr. Howell says, however, the presence of xylazine is likely much higher, according to organizations that offer to test illegal drugs for contaminants before people use them; “xylazine is almost ubiquitous in our drug supply.”

As of June 2025, there were 389 total drug overdose deaths in Connecticut, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s latest report, with fentanyl present in 71 percent of the cases, and xylazine in 14 percent.

But the OCME also warns of new contaminants in the illicit drug supply. Carfentanil, an elephant tranquillizer, was present in 10 of the overdose deaths in 2025; “designer benzodiazepines” were present in 31 deaths; nitazenes, or synthetic opioids, were present in 10 deaths, and Medetomidine, “an emerging illicit drug adulterant and a veterinary sedative which is more potent than xylazine” was found in one death in 2024, but thus far has not yet been seen in 2025.

All that to say, if the illicit drug supply is contaminated on the street where it is readily available, one can only imagine what happens in a controlled setting like the prison system where additional steps must be taken obtain and hide drugs of any kind, and where individuals may be desperate to use but also much more susceptible to overdose.

“The opioid supply in the community is highly variable,” Dr. Howell said. “Day to day, you don’t know what you’re going to get, largely because of contamination of fentanyl and other contaminants, you just don’t know what you’re going to get. It’s kind a like Russian Roulette. That’s true in the community, so imagine contraband use in a correctional setting.”

“Typically, drugs come into a prison basically by four ways,” Prescott said. “One is the visiting area; one is from staff itself; another is from vendors, people bringing in food products and cleaning products and all the things a prison needs to run on regularly, and the mail.”

Although prison guards examine the mail, the drugs are often converted into a substance that can be sprayed or “painted” in a way onto the paper itself, making it difficult to detect. Given any number of different drugs that can be transported in this way, if and when a prisoner has a bad reaction – perhaps a seizure – guards, medical staff, and sometimes the inmates themselves have no idea what they may have ingested, which can hamper a medical intervention.

“A lot of times the paper is sprayed any number of things, and the inmates will eat the paper, they’ll burn the paper and inhale the fumes from it,” Prescott said. “Sometimes it’s things like bug spray. Really powerful, chemically laden things.”

In July of 2025, New Haven-based attorney and former state and local public official Jonathan Einhorn lost his law license and signed a deferred prosecution agreement after he was caught smuggling synthetic marijuana – commonly called K2 – into a Rhode Island prison by spraying the substance on documents that prison guards found and saw were “discolored and highly stained,” according to the New Haven Independent. Einhorn was not prosecuted for his crime in exchange for giving up his law license for ten years.

Visitors to correctional facilities can, of course, be a source of drugs getting into the system, and that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of prisoner strip searches following visitation, a practice that activists in Connecticut have been trying for years to end, saying it is dehumanizing. 

As part of a $5,000,000 pilot program funded by state bonding, two body scanners are set to be installed at York Correctional Institution and Manson Youth Institution. According to CT Mirror, the estimated cost to install body scanners in every visiting room, intake unit, lobby, and solitary confinement would cost $8.1 million. 

While that may be expensive, so are some successful lawsuits filed in other states when strip searches have been used improperly. Illinois paid out $3 million in 2024 when a mass strip search was conducted as a training exercise; in 2010, New York City had to pay $33 million in damages for illegal strip searches of pre-trial detainees. While the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld states’ ability to conduct strip searches for contraband, it can be costly if abused.

Indeed, the 2018 death of Garner Correctional Institute inmate J’Allen Jones – video of which has not been released by the Office of the Attorney General – was the result of officers attempting to perform a strip search before transporting Jones, who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, to a medical facility due to his deteriorating mental health.  Jones resisted the search and officers used physical force. 

Although Connecticut State Police reported there was no crime committed, Jones’ death is now the subject of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family. 

Prescott believes the scanners will reduce narcotics getting into the prison system and points to Maine, which began installing body scanners as early as 2015, as a success story. “In Maine, they were having a horrible time with overdoses in their correctional facilities. They went to full body scanners, and they have, according to the Maine system, reduced overdoses over some measure of time to virtually zero.”

According to information obtained by WMTW in Maine through a Freedom of Information request, between 2019 and 2023, there were 39 inmate deaths in Maine’s prison system. Of those 39, eight were attributable to overdose, but only one occurred in a state prison; the rest were in county jails or police departments. Two overdose deaths were within hours of arrest, and a third occurred while on supervised release.

Testifying in support of House Bill 7186, which would have legislatively required the body scanner pilot program, DeVaughn Ward, interim Correction Ombudsman, said he recognized the importance of ensuring contraband did not get into the system; however, strip searches and cavity searches were degrading and punitive, given other potential options.

“Moreover, correctional officers themselves often do not want to conduct these searches. Many find them deeply uncomfortable and recognize their impact on the individuals subjected to them,” Ward said in written testimony. “Yet, under current policy, officers are required to perform them, even in situations where alternative security measures—such as body scanners—could be just as effective in preventing contraband.”

The bill passed unanimously out of both the Government Oversight and Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, but was never brought to a vote. Instead, the pilot program was funded through the State Bond Commission.

However, there’s another way drugs get into the correction system. In an interview with CT Mirror, a corrections officer and union representative for prison guards at Cheshire Correctional Institute doubted the effectiveness of body scanners compared to a strip search, indicated that most contraband was brought in through visitation, and said the union opposed officers having to go through the scanners if they were to be installed.

Although drug contraband getting into the system is cited as a problem with visitation necessitating prisoner strip-searches and, possibly in the future, body scanners, Barbara Fair of the organization Stop Solitary CT says this overlooks the COVID years when visitation to correctional facilities was paused but drugs still found their way into the system; there were four overdose deaths in state prisons in 2020.

“I’ve had concerns about drug dealing in the system for a long time,” Fair said in an interview. “When COVID came, there was nobody coming in and out of the correctional system except for staff, yet the drugs were still there, so we know it’s not always from visitors bringing it in.”

To this end, Fair has been tracking correctional officers who are arrested and convicted of contraband offenses. Between 2012 and 2023, she noted eleven officers were arrested for bringing in contraband, sometimes in combination with “sexual assault.” The contraband included cell phones, heroin, cocaine, cannabis, oxycodone, and suboxone. Nearly all of the officers received probation or suspended sentences; one received three years of prison time.

A report released just a month ago by the Auditors of Public Accounts also found that over 2022 and 2023, DOC had paid $834,955 to officers placed on paid administrative leave for more than a year, including one who had been on leave for more than three years. DOC’s explanation was that the officers were on leave pending investigation, which included investigations for smuggling contraband.

“I started looking at what kind of discipline these officers are getting, and they’re getting a slap on the wrist for bringing drugs into the system,” Fair said. “To claim that you’re doing strip searches because you’re worried about drugs being in the system, yet you have officers bringing drugs into the system and they don’t even get a bag check, that is worrisome to me.”

Of course, illegal drugs getting into the correctional system is bad for the officers, as well, who then have to deal with any number of potential effects of inmates using powerful narcotics, including violence and medical events that can also cause harm to the officers.

In June of 2025, five officers were hospitalized after administering Narcan to an inmate experiencing an overdose at MacDougal-Walker Correctional Institution. According to reports, the officers began to experience dizziness, “tingling in their extremities and felt extremely hot,” according to NBC CT.

In statements released by AFSCME, Correction Officer Rob Beamon, president of Local 391, said narcotics making their way into the prison system is making everyone less safe. The release noted the most common channels for drugs to get into the prison system were through visitation and the mail.

“It makes the prison population less safe, it makes the officers less safe,” Beamon said. “We, as union leaders, have been pleading with our administration, our leadership, to implement better measures to quell the drugs from coming into the facility so that these incidents don’t happen.”

The union release referenced a 2024 report by AFSCME Council 31 out of Illinois called The Growing Plague of Drugs in Illinois Prisons. In it, the authors cite the prevalence of fentanyl, K2 and other synthetic drugs, and wasp spray that comes in via the mail, and that it has “led to an increasingly dangerous environment, both for staff and incarcerated individuals.”

Their recommendations included photocopying or scanning mail coming into prisons, full transparency by the Illinois Department of Correction (IDOC) regarding drug incidents, and stricter consequences for incarcerated individuals found using drugs.

“IDOC staff at facilities throughout the state are forced to work in environments where drugs are being used constantly, leading to dangerous exposure to smoke and assaults by offenders who are under the influence of drugs,” AFSCME Council 31’s report said. “IDOC must act now to stop drug use – including the rapidly increasing use of synthetic drugs and smoking of wasp spray – in its system and keep its employees and incarcerated residents safe.”

The body scanners have yet to be installed at York Correctional Institute and Mason Youth Institute, according to Fair.

“What’s been happening, if you follow the trail of the conversations each session, they keep delaying, delaying, delaying,” Fair said. “The latest delay is that we’re going to have a pilot program starting in December, but now that might not even happen, which doesn’t surprise me.” 

Drug overdoses in the carceral system are not limited to illegal narcotics alone. Two men inside Garner Correctional Institution died of overdoses within two days of each other in July 2024. DOC announced that both deaths were due to overdoses of methadone combined with medications used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 

In one case, the inmate appeared to be sleeping throughout the night and guards were only alerted to a problem when he didn’t get out of bed in the morning; in the other case, the individual was observed to be having a medical emergency and was administered Narcan five times by medical staff before he passed away, according to State Police reports.

Those deaths remain under investigation by the Office of the Inspector General. “We’re still looking at it,” Prescott said. “It’s not clear what happened, but two inmates died within a very close window of time at Garner who were given Suboxone.”

In the OIG reports on deaths in custody, former IG Devlin does make some recommendations, although they’re not applicable in all situations. 

In the case of Robert Chambers, who had managed to hide fentanyl in his clothes and subsequently overdosed, Devlin recommended police could “take custody of the arrestee’s clothing while the person is in police custody,” and provide them with a hospital gown, saying it “would likely substantially reduce the chance of an in-custody drug induced death.” 

Prescott, however, admits that the hospital gowns provide little warmth. “It’s going to be highly dependent on circumstance,” Prescott said. “Then there’s the question about the adequacy of the search. How carefully are you searching these items of clothing?”

In the report on Linda Praylow, the IG reiterated the recommendation of hospital gowns but also suggested that if Praylow’s bond was not set by a court, she may have been eligible for nonfinancial release because “her offenses were nonviolent, and she lived locally.” Lastly, the report indicated that the Hartford detention facility was staffed, in part, with “overtime personnel.”

“That is a management decision that is within their discretion to make. Such overtime personnel, however, should have training in prisoner monitoring,” the report said. “They should be trained to detect medical issues – particularly the effect of drug detoxification.”

Dr. Howell, however, believes that eliminating narcotics from the prison system is “going to be very challenging,” not only because the ubiquity of fentanyl, which is easy to smuggle because small quantities are still very powerful, but because the correction system – whether it is police lockup or state prison – is really just an extension of the larger community and society; what happens in that society transfers into the carceral system, as well.

“We have this perception of jails and prison being outside of society or separate from society, but it’s a pretty permeable barrier,” Dr. Howell said. “Whatever you’re seeing in the community, you’re going to see in correctional settings.”

For BenSoin Bracey and his family, however, they are seeking a systemic change to the system that allegedly failed to recognize and act when his brother was experiencing a medical episode brought on by his drug use combined with the devastating effects of ALS, and then allegedly attempted to cover up that failure.

To that end, he points to a massive 2023 civil rights lawsuit out of Oklahoma that resulted in a jury award of $82 million for the death of a woman detained in jail who had repeatedly requested medical help before she died of a heart attack. Lawsuits and monetary payouts can sometimes spark policy changes, but he also points to legislation at the state level that he hopes will increase accountability within the prison system.

In 2025, Senate Bill 1436 was introduced, which would have made it a crime for police or DOC personnel to falsify records. The legislation was passed unanimously out of committee but was never brought to a vote. While some indicated this was related to an investigation into allegations made about the Connecticut State Police falsifying tickets, there are also documented cases of DOC personnel falsifying records following the death of an incarcerated individual. 

Unknown persons forged signatures and falsified documents regarding the homicide of Carl Talbot, a man with psychological and substance abuse issues, combined with medical issues. Thus far, it is unknown who “fabricated completely” the restraint documents, and many of the DOC employees involved in the homicide have retired with pensions. The state has reached a $3.75 million settlement with Talbot’s family.

“The Department of Correction literally falsified records and so because of my brother now, they put forth legislation to hold correction officers accountable for falsifying records. Because, as of right now if correctional officers falsify records, it’s not an offense,” BenSoin Bracey said. “So, a lot of times these correction officers are doing whatever they want because they’re not going to be held accountable.”

“We want change,” Bracey continued. “We feel like it’s a systemic problem and we want change.”

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