Video news footage at the below title link:
This article was also published on TCPalm.com on the 19th of July with a slightly different title:
Guard says he was ordered not to call 911 before sick Fort Pierce teen died | Video (video news footage also at that title link).
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The Palm Beach PostWest Palm Beach guard says he wanted to call 911 before 18-year-old died at detention facilityState juvenile justice administrators have a tape of a dying teen in custody in Palm Beach County. Two lockup workers have been fired and several others suspended.BY JULIUS WHIGHAM II
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 11:54 p.m. Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Posted: 9:49 p.m. Monday, July 18, 2011
Maritza Perez, the mother of Eric Perez, at a press conference Monday afternoon. (Damon Higgins/The Palm Beach Post)
Richard Schuler, the attorney for Maritza Perez, speaks to the media Monday afternoon during a press conference. (Damon Higgins/The Palm Beach Post)
Eric Perez was 18 when he died. Family photo
Eric Perez Photo providedA guard who was on duty when an 18-year-old died at a West Palm Beach juvenile detention center stepped forward today, saying that he was ordered not to call 911 when he thought something was wrong.
Attorneys for officer Floyd Powell said that at least two supervisors gave a directive not to call 911, although Powell suspected that Eric Perez needed medical attention. However, state officials said that Powell and another officer on duty, were fired because they did not call 911.
Perez, who turned 18 this month, died the morning of July 10 while in custody at the state-run Palm Beach Regional Juvenile Detention Center on 45th Street.
Powell, speaking through his attorneys, said that he was fired after disclosing to state investigators that he was ordered not to call 911. Four other officers were suspended in the wake of the investigation.
"The direction was that he was not to call 911," Powell's attorney, Cathy L. Purvis Lively said this afternoon. "In order to do so, Mr. Powell would have had to have left the (holding area) where he was responsible. There was not a phone directly in the (area), and he is prohibited from having a mobile phone on his person while he was on duty."
Powell, who was a five-year employee of the State Department of Juvenile Justice, was recently promoted and was told that he was dismissed because he did not meet the terms of his probationary status with the new position, Lively said.
He is seeking damages for wrongful termination, she said.
In a prepared statement, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Wansley Walters said officers Powell and Terence D. Davis were terminated because "we cannot tolerate staff not following policies and procedures, especially as it relates to the medical care of youth in our custody,"
In the meantime, an attorney for Perez's family alleges that the teen repeatedly complained of headaches and vomited for seven hours while awaiting medical attention.
"It doesn't take a genius to realize this is a very serious condition," Richard Schuler, the attorney for Perez's family, said. "When the young man was finally taken back to the medical detention holding area, which was basically just a bare room and put there, no one was called there. Someone was told to stand guard out front and later on, that person wasn't even there."
Schuler said that based on conversations with one of the fired employees, there was a flagrant violation of rules and standards by the detention center's employees.
"We don't know, because the investigation hasn't been completed, exactly what the time sequences are," Schuler said during a press conference today with Perez's mother, Maritza Perez. "But we suspect that he was left alone in that room to die by himself without any medical care whatsoever."
DJJ officials did not immediately respond to Schuler's allegation.
Maritza Perez said that she was hoping to find answers as to why her son died. Perez said during initial conversations, investigators told her that Eric died of a sudden illness. A lieutenant from the detention center said Eric had an enlarged heart and had bleeding in his brain, Perez said. A representative from the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's office indicated his office needed to examine Eric's lungs, she said.
But Perez said today that she believes her son's death could possibly have been avoided.
"Why do they have to go through this? Why do they have to die?" she said at the law office of Schuler, Halvorson and Weisser. "My son didn't have to die like this. They could have done something to help him out. If a kid complains about a headache, why couldn't they take care of it (or) pay attention to it?"
Perez said she wants other families to avoid having to deal with similar circumstances.
"I just want justice, that's all," she said. "I want other kids not to go through what my son went through."
Schuler said that any litigation on the family's behalf would be pending the outcome of autopsy results and the state's investigation, which could take up to six months.
Schuler and child advocates say the case reminds them of the death of Omar Paisley, a 17-year-old who died of a ruptured appendix in June 2003 while in DJJ custody. Wracked by excruciating pains, Paisley suffered for three days as his condition went untreated, his cries for help ignored by guards and nurses at the Miami juvenile jail.
The case led to sweeping reforms at the Department of Juvenile Justice, spurred the departure of more than 20 employees. It resulted in criminal charges for two nurses and a more than $1 million payment for Paisley's family.
"This seems to be a déjà vu event here," Schuler said. "A very similar situation occurred down at the juvenile detention center in Dade County . . . This was eight years ago. There were rules and regulations that were put in effect at that time as result of that event that were put in effect today that were ignored."
Staff Writer Michael LaForgia contributed to this report.User comments are not being accepted on this article.Copyright © 2011 The Palm Beach Post.