Rest in Peace, Jerry
I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night. It’s dark, my cell door locked. I hear thud, thud, thud but don’t know where from. The banging is loud enough that I hear it through my earplugs and over the eight-inch fan I use for white noise. Just barely, but enough to wake me. Then I fall back asleep—until shouting rips me awake again:
“IS HE DEAD!” demanded the guard.
I’m up. Alarmed. Ready for a shakedown, a fight, or all Hell to break loose. In prison you learn fast: shoes on, tied tight, at the first sign of trouble. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m dressed in seconds and plastered to the window slit in my cell door.
A skinny young guard stands pale-faced, wide-eyed, shifting foot to foot. Another officer, older, steadier, speaks through the door of the cell across from me.
“I killed my cellie.”
He said it almost demurely.
I hear the chirp of a radio. Then: Is he in restraints? More mumbling. Another chirp. Finally the bark: “GET HIM IN RESTRAINTS!”
But there is no fight. My neighbor’s door rolls open. He steps out calmly, hands on the wall. The older officer cuffs him. His gray sweatpants and white shirt are stained red, splattered like he’s been jumping in mud puddles. Even from my door, I can smell the blood.
Medical Response arrives. “Are you gonna do CPR?” the young guard asks. “I mean, what can I do?” the nurse replies flatly. Soon the hall fills with officers and responders. Jerry’s body is pulled out and chest compressions begin—forty-five minutes, maybe more.
And then it’s quiet. The personnel gone. The hallway empty, except for Jerry’s corpse cooling in front of my door.
Should I look? I ask myself. What do I gain by looking? … You have to look. Life is full of terrible experiences that are just as important as the good ones.
So I looked. And saw a brutal mess. Stomped to death. His eyes missing.
You shouldn’t have looked.
Poor Jerry.
How Did This Happen?
The victim was Gerald Cummings, Jr. He went by Jerry, and everyone liked him. He carried himself with the gentle mien of a sweet old man, though he was only in his fifties. He was nearly done with a short sentence for DUI. Soon to be free.
Jerry got along with everyone—even with the cellmate who killed him.
That cellmate was schizophrenic. I’m not a psychiatrist, but after twenty years in prison I can recognize the symptoms. This man was an easy diagnosis. He oozed instability—talking to himself in angry tones, recoiling but aggressive at the same time. He put everyone on edge.
So why was he in general population? Why was a man with clear, violent psychosis double-bunked with Jerry?
Just days before the murder, he was released from the Hole, finishing a stint in segregation for attacking another inmate, unprovoked, while housed in the prison’s Behavioral Health Unit. Rumor has it he attacked another man at a minimum-security facility before that.
The pattern is obvious. The warning signs were neon. And still: he was exposed to other inmates. Still: Jerry was placed in that cell with him.
Paperwork as Psychiatry
Idaho’s prisons employ clinicians. They conduct screenings. On paper, it looks like mental health care.
In practice, it’s just paperwork.
The screening process is reduced to a yes/no checklist:
- “Are you hearing voices?”
- “Do you want to hurt yourself?”
- “Do you feel safe?”
A schizophrenic who wants out of segregation knows the “correct” answers. And clinicians, tasked with screening dozens of inmates a week, may not even look up from the clipboard.
The result is a masquerade. Paperwork, not care.
Officials can point to forms and say the process was followed. Administrators can tell families care was provided. But Jerry’s body on the hallway floor tells the truth.
Systemic Collapse: Idaho’s Mental Health in Corrections
Jerry’s death was not an anomaly. It was systemic failure.
Idaho is one of only two states that locks up people deemed “dangerously mentally ill” in prison cells even without a criminal conviction. There are nine such beds for men, and one for women—patients who belong in hospitals, not maximum-security cells.
Inside the system, resources are equally scarce. The Idaho Maximum Security Institution has only 30 beds for acute mental illness. A drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of prisoners who need treatment.
Nationally, about 40% of incarcerated people have a history of mental illness. Yet nearly two-thirds receive no treatment at all.
Idaho’s required screenings—the yes/no checklists—don’t fix that. They don’t protect anyone. They only protect the institution when lawsuits come.
Jerry’s killer should never have been placed in general population. He should have been in treatment. Jerry should have been preparing to go home. Instead, one was buried and the other buried deeper in prison.
The Larger Failure
Jerry should have been packing his belongings for release, not zipped into a body bag. His killer should have been under real psychiatric care, not double-bunked in a general population cell. Both men were swallowed by a system that criminalizes illness and then pretends clipboards are medicine.
What happened on my tier that night wasn’t an aberration. It was the natural consequence of neglect dressed up as policy.
No one will be fired. No reforms enacted. The “investigation” will fade into a file folder.
But the blood on my neighbor’s sweatpants, the smell in the air, the image of Jerry’s body on that cold hallway floor—those remain.
They remain for the men who saw it.
For the family who will never welcome Jerry home.
And for the countless others caught in a system that turns untreated illness into another life sentence.