The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department quietly changed its employee handbook earlier this year to require corrections officers to administer CPR in serious medical emergencies — so quietly that many jail staff remain unaware of the change months later.
The sheriff’s department, which runs the jail, updated its employee handbook in January to require correctional officers to begin and continue CPR until relieved by medical staff. But only new hires have been notified of the change, meaning the vast majority of corrections officers continue to operate as if their only obligation is to call a nurse, according to Adam Chaloupka, legal counsel and president of the corrections officers’ union.
“I doubt every CO even has it, or has seen it, or has access to it,” Chaloupka said of the rule change that even he was not aware of until The Marshall Project - Cleveland showed it to him.
The handbook update came as The Marshall Project - Cleveland reported on a series of deaths inside the jail in recent years, at least half of which involved inadequate medical care or failure to promptly administer CPR.
Meanwhile, policies that govern jail operations, which are separate from the employee handbook, remain silent on whether corrections officers are required to administer CPR after calling a nurse. Adding to the confusion, county officials updated those policies in July to require life-saving CPR — but only for people who are dying outside the jail while in the custody of corrections officers and deputies.
Chaloupka said officers are expected to follow the new handbook, “even though it’s not technically called a policy.”
Rules governing CPR for people in prisons and jails differ from state to state and county to county across the U.S. For example, in New Jersey and Nebraska, prison officers are required to administer CPR within four minutes of an emergency, in line with American Correctional Association standards.
Ohio lacks language that explicitly requires jail or prison staff to perform CPR. A spokesperson for the Ohio prison system, which sets standards for jails, said mandatory corrections officer training includes instruction that CPR must be administered when a person is not breathing or has no pulse. However, records reviewed by The Marshall Project - Cleveland show Cuyahoga County has routinely failed to train all its corrections officers in CPR.
County executive and sheriff’s department officials declined to explain the discrepancies in the policies or the new rule.
“I think they’re in constant risk management mode,” said Chaloupka. “I don’t know how that’s remotely good stewardship or good leadership.”
The January change was part of an update to the Officer Manual of Instruction and Direction, an employee handbook for correctional staff. Officers in the jail must now check for signs of life within 10 seconds of finding someone unresponsive, activate the alarm and secure the unit. The prior version of the handbook only mentioned CPR in the event of a seizure or suicide. The new version requires it in all medical emergencies, when safe to do so.
Videos reviewed by The Marshall Project - Cleveland showed officers idly waiting for nurses to arrive, sometimes for minutes, during medical emergencies that resulted in several of the jail’s 20 deaths since 2020.
Early last year, a dozen corrections officers and a team of nurses waited nearly 20 minutes to start CPR after finding Jennifer Wade without a pulse on the floor of her secluded cell in the jail’s medical pod.
State inspectors initially found that jail staff acted appropriately. But in December, after The Marshall Project - Cleveland informed the inspectors of body camera footage that captured the medical emergency and a corrections officer who admitted that Wade had been lying on the floor for hours, the inspectors concluded that jail staff should have started CPR the moment they found Wade.
Throughout the months of reporting, which included a series of questions sent to county officials a week before the handbook was updated, The Marshall Project - Cleveland repeatedly asked jail and county leaders for all policies that govern the use of CPR in the jail. It wasn’t until after publishing a July article on the state’s new findings in Wade’s death that a spokesperson for County Executive Chris Ronayne provided the updated handbook via the sheriff’s department.
The new handbook was still not on Lexipol, a third-party platform that hosts policies and procedures for local government employees, by mid-September, according to an email obtained by The Marshall Project - Cleveland. Corrections staff were given access to Lexipol earlier this year. But the county has been slow to publish the handbook for its employees to see.
Jail administrators were still working out a plan to distribute paper copies of the new handbook nearly eight months after it took effect, according to the internal email.
The county’s collective bargaining agreement with the corrections officers’ union requires 14 days’ notice of significant changes to rules or procedures. Chaloupka said no notification about the handbook change was ever given to the union.
In a corrective action plan submitted to inspectors following Wade’s death, jail leadership promised more emergency medical drills, better communication with nurses and more CPR training requirements for staff. Administrative officers would also “continue to ensure that all officers are trained and familiar with all jail policies and procedures concerning critical incidents using our Lexipol training programs.”
Citing pending litigation, a spokesperson for Ronayne’s office declined to say if any of these goals have been achieved or to answer questions about why the handbook is not on Lexipol.
Two recent lawsuits have alleged that corrections staff failed to promptly administer CPR before deaths in Ohio jails. Officials in Montgomery County agreed to pay $7 million to the family of Christian Black, who died last year after jail staff waited nine minutes to begin CPR following a restraint by officers. In the second case, which is still pending, Wade’s family is seeking $50 million from Cuyahoga County.