Washington families seek jail improvements, one settlement at a time

In a new legal settlement finalized Dec. 4, commissioners for Klickitat County in south-central Washington have committed to broad changes intended to improve medical care at their jail and prevent suicides.

The commissioners have taken over jail supervision from the county sheriff, Bob Songer, and his appointed jail director, Loren Culp, who also ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2020. County leaders also agreed to require additional staff training, audits, and on-site medical services.

It’s the result of a local outcry over jail conditions and a civil rights claim by the family of Ivan Howtopat. He was an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation who died by suicide in the jail while experiencing opioid withdrawal in May 2023.

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In a statement, Ivan’s mother Melissa Howtopat said, “Losing a child was the worst pain I have ever experienced and I would give all the money in the world to have Ivan back. I hope that this settlement, and the commitments to policy changes the County made in our agreement, will ensure that nobody else’s children will die in that jail.”

Attorney Corinne Sebren represented the Howtopat family. She said the county will pay the Howtopat family $2 million.

As part of the settlement, Klickitat County also committed to improved medical and mental health care, including screening and monitoring the people held in jail for opioid withdrawal and suicide risk.

The county has hired a new jail superintendent and will perform an independent audit of the jail within a year of the new supervisor’s start date.

Sebren said getting the county to commit to these changes is “a really powerful mechanism, it’s a tool we have started using more and more in our settlements.”

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Lori Zoller chairs the Klickitat County board of commissioners. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

It’s the second settlement Sebren's firm, Galanda Broadman, has pursued that resulted in changes to jail conditions in Washington state. The firm previously obtained a commitment from Garfield County to keep its jail closed unless it implements new training and standards. That was in the wake of the death of Kyle Lara, whose death in jail went undiscovered for 18 hours.

Kyle’s father David Lara said closing the Garfield County Jail “was what it was all about, to ensure this can never happen to another person.” But he added, “To this day, I do not understand. There is no oversight whatsoever in the state of Washington of the jail system.”

Unlike dozens of other states, Washington has no statewide body overseeing conditions in local jails.

Sebren said these agreements with county officials result in tangible changes, although only in the jurisdiction where the death took place.

“For the families that I work with who really want to see reform and justice and change, these non-monetary terms in a settlement agreement are one of the only ways they can do that, aside from just advocating, going to the Legislature and trying to change the law, which is a really big hurdle,” Sebren said.

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A 2023 task force supported creating a system for state oversight, but those proposals failed to pass the state Legislature last year.

State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle) has reintroduced SB 5005, a measure to monitor local jails for compliance with statewide standards, for the 2025 session. It would create a Jail Oversight Board within the Office of the Governor.

This fall the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians issued a statement calling on legislators to set “minimum enforceable standards for jails in Washington state related to substance withdrawal management, and suicide prevention” and to mandate the development of relevant training for all corrections officers.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington state had the fourth highest jail death rate in the nation in 2019, the latest year federal data is available.