Five current and former D.C. jail inmates sued the facility Monday, alleging that jail staff failed to prevent and adequately respond to a series of fires set by a fellow inmate who said he was going to kill himself.
The lawsuit alleges that staffers at the jail’s mental health unit, where the plaintiffs were housed, ignored the man’s pleas and did nothing to help for several hours as the incident unfolded in September 2023.
The complaint said an electrical fire eventually filled the unit with smoke and left some of the inmates with lasting respiratory damage and psychological distress from being trapped so close by, exacerbating their existing mental health issues.
The men in the unit “could do nothing but watch in terror and bang on their cell doors as the fire grew,” according to the complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court. “Only when the unit had filled completely with thick black smoke, choking and blinding Plaintiffs, did staff move to extinguish the fire and evacuate the residents.”
The 38-page complaint is partially redacted because of a protective order restricting the release of certain internal jail documents filed with the lawsuit. For example, a portion of the complaint that describes the timeline of the fires redacts more than two hours, obscuring some details from public view.
At one point, visible “flames burned off and on in the unit for almost an hour while on-duty staff remained unmoving in the glass control module overlooking the unit,” the plaintiffs allege.
A D.C. Department of Corrections spokesperson said in a statement that the department “has not received the complaint referenced and therefore cannot comment on its specific allegations.”
In a response to official complaints submitted earlier by plaintiffs, jail officials said there was “no indication” that the inmates who have now filed suit “were personally affected by a Department or facility action or policy/procedure,” according to lawsuit, which quoted the jail’s initial response.
Of the five plaintiffs, two are still incarcerated at the D.C. jail, two are in the federal prison system and one has been released from jail custody and lives in a residential treatment program in D.C.
“This is one piece in a long, well-documented history of issues with the D.C. jail,” Ian Herbert, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in an interview. Herbert said the issues raised in the complaint, including the failure to properly staff the jail or train employees, were “known and documented for many years prior to the fire.”
“Really, the fire was both foreseeable and preventable,” he added.
The D.C. jail, officially known as the Central Detention Facility, has long been plagued by violent and unsafe conditions and chronic understaffing, inspections and auditors’ reports have found.
In 2021, the U.S. Marshals Service transferred hundreds of federal detainees from the jail after a surprise inspection found “systemic failures” at the facility, including “grotesquely poor sanitation and the punitive withholding of food and water.” And last year, a report by the D.C. Auditor found that people in the custody of the city’s Department of Corrections died at more than three times the national average at jails between 2023 and 2024, with overdoses the most common cause of death.
The lawsuit comes after a nearly two-year legal fight to obtain records related to the 2023 fire. In November 2023, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records, which was denied. The group filed a lawsuit demanding the release of the records and a D.C. judge ruled in their favor last year.
“Part of this is also just shedding light on the fact that there was never really an investigation into this incident: how it was possible for a person in a mental health crisis, over a 12 hour period, to lead to this level of damage,” said Leslie Faith Jones, a lawyer for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, who is also representing the plaintiffs.
Jones said her clients “want people to know what happened to them to prevent this from happening again.”
The plaintiffs, all of whom have diagnosed mental health disorders, were incarcerated in the jail’s mental health step-down unit, a “therapeutic unit” meant for residents discharged from intensive mental health care but not yet considered ready to return the jail’s general population, according to the complaint.
On the night of Sept. 14, 2023, a resident in the unit — identified in the complaint as “John Doe” — began yelling that he “wanted to kill himself and requesting to speak with a staff supervisor or a doctor,” according to the complaint. The man’s cries, which were audible throughout the unit, continued through the night and into the next morning, the lawsuit alleges.
When staff conducted rounds, other residents in the unit, including some plaintiffs, asked the officers to address the man’s repeated threats of suicide, fearing that he posed a danger to himself and others. At one point, the complaint says, one of the plaintiffs left his cell for a work detail and spoke directly with Doe, who asked him to tell an officer that Doe “needed help as soon as possible.” The plaintiff told an officer on duty, but no one came to check on Doe, the suit alleges.
About 8 a.m. the next morning, after hours of unanswered pleas for help, Doe began lighting fires, first in his cell and then in the unit hallway, according to the lawsuit. More than two hours later, other residents in the unit looked on as Doe pushed pieces of burning paper and fabric through an opening in his cell door. One of the plaintiffs, whose cell was directly across from Doe’s, asked him to stop but Doe “responded that he wanted to die and continued his efforts,” the complaint alleges.
As the unit filled with smoke, residents tried to get the attention of jail staff, banging on their cell doors and yelling that there was a fire, according to the complaint. One resident tried to use a jail-issued tablet to call for help but could not see the screen because of the smoke, according to the lawsuit. Another used his tablet to contact a local legal organization to report the fire and ask for help. Some resorted to using towels and linens to block gaps in their doors and create makeshift masks to protect themselves from the smoke, according to the suit.
According to the complaint, Doe eventually pulled an electrical box fan from the hallway into his cell and used it to start a large electrical fire at 10:52 a.m. It is unclear when exactly Doe pulled the fan into his cell, because of the complaint’s redactions.
“Jail staff ignored the resident’s pleas and left him unattended during the three hours it took him to set up and light a series of small fires before the larger electrical fire,” the complaint said.
At 10:53 a.m., a jail staffer entered the unit and put out the fire with an extinguisher, according to the lawsuit. Three minutes later, the cell doors in the unit opened electronically and the residents immediately ran toward the stairwell, causing a confused scramble in the smoke-filled hallway, the lawsuit alleges. One plaintiff reported that the smoke in his cell was so thick that he was unable to see or breathe and was completely disoriented.
Doe survived the fire, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Some key details of the incident are in dispute. In response to earlier official complaints filed by plaintiffs, jail officials stated that the fire alarm had worked, leading to a quick response, according to the complaint. But the lawsuit alleges that the unit’s fire alarm did not activate before staff responded.
Problems continued after the fire was put out, the complaint alleges. One plaintiff’s request for an inhaler was denied, despite a heart condition and a history of childhood asthma, according to the complaint, with staff allegedly telling him “no inhaler was available and he would have to wait to receive one.”
The plaintiffs also allege they were made to clean up debris from the fire but were not given face masks as they cleared out ash and the chemical residue left over by the fire extinguisher. With the exception of one plaintiff, the other plaintiffs did not receive new clothes and had to use smoky clothing and bedding for days after the fire, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs also allege that senior jail officials did not fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the fire or hold any staff accountable for their actions.
The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and damages for the plaintiffs in an unspecified amount.
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