New video shows inmates doing drugs openly inside the Barton street jail

Marty Tykoliz and his cellmate Paul Lutraan can be seen snorting drugs off a table in the day room of the Barton st jail. They also appear to be smoking. This security video was taken around lunch time on May 5th 2014, just hours before Tykoliz overdosed. The inquest has heard the security camera feed isn’t actively watched.

In a police interview, former inmate Sean Coyne said he could see and smell them using drugs from his cell. Coyne calls the jail a “pharmacy” where you can get any drugs.

A correctional officer caught Tykoliz and Lutraan with the drugs but Lutraan hid two packages up his rectum and Tykoliz flushed the other. Despite this, the two were allowed to stay in the same cell.

A few hours after the video, Tykoliz was found unresponsive in his cell. He was given Naloxone and taken to hospital. He was treated and sent back to jail with instructions that he should be monitored.

There should have been a nurse on duty when Tykoliz arrived back from the hospital that night but he wasn’t seen by one and he was taken right to segregation. He wasn’t put on an official head watch where he would be woken up every hour and when a nurse took his vitals the next morning and found his heart rate and blood pressure were low, no one called an ambulance.

A few hours later he was again found unresponsive in his cell. That nurse has since retired from the jail.

Inquest has heard from a number of healthcare staff about challenges with overcrowding and under staffing. Even today the inquest was told that having the nurses there to testify is a challenge because they are needed at the jail.

When Tykoliz returned to jail after that first overdose he was strip searched and put into segregation. When he was taken back to hospital the second time, a package was found on him with 49 pills, including methadone and morphine, heroine and marijuana. The inquest has heard he had asked for help to be on the methadone program, but was denied.