A Sacramento family is looking for answers after they say the Sheriff’s Department failed to tell them that their loved one, 25-year-old Tyus Hutton, was sent from the mail jail to Sutter Hospital in critical condition and now may be pulled off life support.
Hutton has been at Sutter Hospital since August 23 but the family said they were not made aware until August 29, according to local activists who held a press conference Sept. 2 at Sutter Hospital.
“This is my last baby, my only boy,” Hutton’s father Ted Gayfield tearfully said during the press conference. “Tyus ain’t a bad person.”
The family said they were left in the dark by the sheriff’s office for six days while Hutton lay lifeless in the hospital, according to Jamilia Land, co-founder of the Anti-Violence, Safety and Accountability Project.
“It’s unbelievable that we are standing here today with the family of Tyus Hutton,” Land said. “The family has no answers.”
Hutton’s family said that it was the hospital that called the family despite being told by the sheriff’s office not to contact them.
“They didn’t contact anyone, the hospital contacted the family on August 29, six days after he was brought there … against the orders of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department,” said Leia Schenk, founder of EMPACT and advocate for Hutton’s family.
According to the Sheriff’s inmate information, Hutton was booked into jail on May 30, has no charges, ineligible for bail and has a court date scheduled for October 4.
Sheriff spokesperson, Sergeant Gandhi Amar, told The OBSERVER via email that no medical or other inmate information can be released but that a fight broke out between two inmates.
“There was a fight at the jail between two inmates,” Amar wrote via email. “One inmate has been hospitalized.”
Amar said detectives from the Sheriff’s Centralized Investigations Division are investigating.
When asked about the date of the fight, Sergeant Amar has not responded as of press time. No other information is being provided at this time.
Hospital officials told Hutton’s family that he is brain dead which is consistent with having prolonged lack of oxygen to the brain.
Attorney Melissa Nold said that Hutton’s condition is similar to being subject to a choke-hold or personal asphyxiation. Nold said the lack of information being provided by the Sheriff’s office is very concerning.
This is a developing story.