Oklahoma County jail: Cases of inmate deaths, rape, torture

Death, rape, and torture by using music have been reported at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in the United States, amid calls by human rights and justice defenders to stop sending inmates to this troubled detention center.

Inmate John Basco, 48, who sued officers of the Oklahoma County Detention Center for torturing him by repeating the song “Baby Shark” for several hours in 2021, was found dead in his cell on September 11, 2022.

The incident of torturing him, along with other inmates, dates back to 2019 when three officers, currently not on duty, played a loop of “Baby Shark” while the prisoners’ hands were cuffed behind them, US Today reported.

The Oklahoma Coalition Against People Abuse announced their support for the family of the dead inmate, calling for answers behind the death of Basco, who was the only inmate in his cell three days before his death “over a drug trafficking complaint,” as was announced by the detention center in a press release.

The detention center announced that the officers at the jail tried to save Basco’s life until the arrival of emergency responders, but he was “pronounced dead shortly after 4:05 a.m.” It was reported that Basco’s death was the 14th reported case this year in the jail.

Inmate raped by another

Another inmate at the jail named Donta Ramone Thomas, 44, was charged with first-degree rape against a female inmate while she was handcuffed to a bar on a wall in July 2022.  Thomas was accused of walking away from the receiving area in the jail after he was fingerprinted and raping the female inmate before her release, local media reported.

“The video in the receiving area clearly depicts the victim being handcuffed to a wall — for possibly several hours […] the suspect, after being booked in, is left unhandcuffed and unsupervised and has full and complete access to the victim,” District Attorney David Prater was quoted as saying by The Oklahoman on Thursday.

Greg Williams, the jail administrator, voiced his regret over the incident, saying on Thursday, “We have used it as an opportunity to evaluate and update our operations, as well as to remind our staff of the critical importance of following procedures at all times. We also have an ongoing internal investigation on the actions of the detention officer during this incident,” the newspaper reported.

‘Deadliest jail in America’

The NGO People's Council for Justice Reform held a press conference calling upon the municipalities of Midwest City, Edmond and Oklahoma City to quit dealing and rescind contracts with the Oklahoma Country Criminal Justice Advisory Council to prevent prisoners from being send to this “deadliest” jail.

The organization members called upon the United States Department of Justice to take over the jail, especially after the report of the rape case.

Employees of the controversial jail were in hot water after a voicemail recording was published on February 8 by NonDoc of a conversation between the jail administrator, William, and the director of communication, Mark Opgrande, describing the COVID-19 pandemic as “their friend” for keeping the media and visitors away from the jail.

The death cases of inmates in the detention center recorded 21 and 14 in 2020 and 2021, respectively, according to local media.

Oklahoma County was ranked the second largest county with the highest amount of deaths (148 inmates) in its jails over a decade (2009 to 2019), according to an investigative report by Reuters in February 2021, which added that 141 of those inmates “were awaiting trial and had not been convicted.”