Fire (Behind the) Wall – Washington City Paper

A man held in the D.C. Jail started a fire after corrections officers ignored his cries for help, according to multiple jail residents who were locked on the same unit. The man repeatedly told officers that he was going to kill himself and asked to see a supervisor and a psychiatrist. But officers ignored his pleas overnight and into the next morning, according to the residents who heard his repeated cries for help.

Residents on the jail’s mental health step-down unit say that the man started asking for help on Sept. 14. Alfonzo Forte says he could hear the man begging for assistance after a corrections officer walked away from the man’s cell.

“He was saying, ‘I need somebody. I’m gonna kill myself. No, please please, no no,’” Forte says. “I ain’t never seen no one do nothing like that before.”

Forte and other residents say the man continued to yell throughout the night. His cries for help continued the next morning, Sept. 15. “I’m going to kill myself! Get me a white shirt! I’m going to kill myself,” the men heard him say.

Noah Summers was watching a movie on his tablet just after the morning count that day, when he noticed smoke wafting into his cell. Through the slot in the door, Summers says he saw the man who had been calling for help push several flaming pieces of paper through his own slot.

Forte says the man continued throwing pieces of paper through the slot to feed the fire. Then the man started throwing what appeared to be pieces of mattress onto the fire.

“That’s when it got really bad,” Summers says. “So we were banging on the slots. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Fire! Fire! Fire!”

Forte says the fire grew about as tall as the cell door itself, and the unit started to fill with smoke so thick that the men could barely see a few feet in front of their faces. Then they watched in horror as the main door leading out of the tier closed. The men couldn’t see any officers on the unit, and they were still locked in their cells. The smoke detectors were not going off, both men say.

“I’m thinking I’m gonna die. I’m gonna burn alive in here,” Summers says. “I was like, ‘Oh shit, they’re gonna let us die and save the officers.’”

“After [the sally port closed], I was like, oh, they actually just don’t care about us,” Forte says.

For more about this incident, and how the D.C. Department of Corrections has initially responded, read the full story on our website.

—Mitch Ryals (tips? mryals@washingtoncitypaper.com)