Pasadena jailers accused of abuse, negligence in death of inmate

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Inside the walls of the Pasadena City Jail, a 63-year old man in custody for public intoxication slipped and badly fractured his leg and the excruciating instant of injury was reportedly captured on camera.

A newly filed federal lawsuit alleges jailers last June provided no medical care and allowed Mark Oswald to writhe in agony for hours before summoning EMS.

"He sat there're for four hours sometime screaming in pain totally ignored," said Randall Kallinen, attorney for Oswald's family.

By the time Oswald made it to a hospital his condition had rapidly deteriorated with internal bleeding, shock and ultimately irreversible organ failure.

According to an autopsy he died four days later from a leg fracture that is rarely fatal.

"The kind of treatment he got here, the kind of treatment he got from EMS was egregious, it was terrible. They killed him," said Charles Peckham, attorney for the Oswald family.

Oswald's daughter Dana says her father suffered mental illness which led him to life on the street. She's demanding accountability.

"The abuse he took in the Pasadena Police Department was horrific, it made me sick," said Oswald who traveled from Illinois to speak for her father.

But attorneys for Pasadena predicated the case would be dismissed contending the evidence doesn't support the hyperbole.

The burden is formidable because in Civil  Rights cases those who sue must often prove a pattern or policy of abuse not just a single incident.

Pasadena claims its officers acted within the law.

Attorney Kallinen firmly disagrees and believes the growing number of victims like Mark Oswald demand action from the courts.

"There is an epidemic of deaths in local jails," said Kallinen.

Pasadena has resisted release of the video detailing Oswald's time in jail, but attorneys for the dead man's family have vowed to make the images public.