Oklahoma County jail has 16th inmate death of 2022

An inmate described as having a chronic health condition died Wednesday night at the Oklahoma County jail, 10 days after his arrest.

Luis Alberto Gonzalez, 39, of Oklahoma City, was being held on the jail's medical floor on a felony assault and battery charge. He was accused of punching his brother in the ear during an argument.

The death is the 16th this year at the Oklahoma County jail and comes at a time of major change.

The jail's administrator, Greg Williams, announced Dec. 5 he is stepping down. His last day is Jan. 19.

That announcement came four weeks after he survived a call for his firing because of the high death toll at the jail. "We worked very hard to make things better. I think we have done a very good job," Williams said Dec. 5.

Also, Jim Couch, the chairman of the trust in charge of jail operations, resigned Dec. 16.

Emergency responders from the Oklahoma City Fire Department pronounced Gonzalez deceased at 9:58 p.m. Wednesday, according to a jail news release. Detention officers had begun life-saving efforts after finding him unresponsive in his cell during a welfare check.

It was his 22nd time at the jail since 2001, records show.

"It is such an unfortunate tragedy, especially with this happening right before Christmas," said Pastor Derrick Scobey, a new trustee. "I am in prayer for his mother and his family as a whole."

Scobey was the trustee who had pushed at a Nov. 7 meeting for Williams to be terminated. "I do believe that the jail deaths, those numbers, will go down in 2023 and beyond for many reasons," Scobey said Thursday

A new health administrator at the jail, Donna Hanson-Wilkins, is an expert at identifying inmates at risk of death because of health issues, the pastor said. "She is proactive in her approach," he said.

Those inmates may be eligible for release on medical own recognizance bonds, he said.

"Even if they're not eligible for medical OR bonds, we want to make sure that we are laying our eyes on them and we're providing the medical services that they need," he said. "Certainly would love to get them out if they are eligible but, if nothing else, to make sure that they're taken care of at a very high level."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma County jail has 16th inmate death of 2022, Greg Williams to leave