33-year-old man dies after ‘medical emergency’ at Mecklenburg County Jail, sheriff says
A 33-year-old man who was being held at the Mecklenburg County Jail died Thursday morning of a “medical emergency,” the Sheriff’s Office said.
A detention officer called the emergency just after 10 a.m. in the infirmary, where Derrick Geter was housed, according to a news release. He was pronounced dead at a hospital at approximately 11:30 a.m.
Jail officials did not provide a cause of death, citing privacy laws.
Geter is the third individual to die in the custody of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office this year. Three died in 2021.
Since 2011, deaths in custody have increased significantly in North Carolina, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. There were 17 deaths in 2011, and 68 in 2021.
Geter had been held in the jail since Jan. 4, 2021, on charges related to sex offenses involving a child, including statutory rape and crimes against nature, according to jail records. The State Bureau of Investigation will investigate the death.
State-led investigations into recent deaths have concluded staffing shortages in the Mecklenburg jail likely contributed to safety violations at the time of death in at least three of the recent cases, The Charlotte Observer has previously reported. That includes the death of Francine Laney, who had a medical emergency while jailed and died shortly after. State investigators in a report afterward said detention center staff failed to make frequent enough safety checks on Laney before she died.
