HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court has cleared Hill and Blaine county officials of discrimination in the slow, painful death of a teenager suffering from alcohol withdrawal while in jail for more than four days.
The court concluded 18-year-old Allen Longsoldier Jr. suffered horrendously but not as the result of discrimination against a disability, alcoholism.
The basketball standout was arrested in November 2009 after his probation officer couldn’t contact him. Over the next three days in jail he didn’t sleep and began hallucinating, dry heaving and pleading for help.
His jailers took him to Northern Montana Hospital, where he was given a prescription that officers did not fill. His condition worsened and he died of delirium tremens, or the DTs.
Longsoldier’s friend, Summer Stricker alleged in a Montana Human Rights Bureau complaint that his prescription was not filled because of discrimination.