 Well, we've all been involved in this story especially when the attorney for the family was here and dropped some bombshells last week But this question is about armor correctional health services, which is contracted to run Duval County's Jails health care and they continued amount after Dexter Barry a heart transplant recipient died last November after he didn't get his Anti-rejection medication while in jail. I'm sure all of us have seen the video from the backseat of the police car as he told The officer I need to take these meds three times a day In fact, I didn't get my last one the officer sounded sympathetic tried to get a supervisor to come up with some idea But apparently mr. Barry ends up in jail does not get his meds by the time he's out The meds apparently arrive at the jail and then he unfortunately passes away. So Andrew Pantos the the tributary staff Obviously did a lot of work on this. I've done some research, but not a lot Certainly we are aware that that Tony Baceli former Jaguar is an active lobbyist with them The big question that came from the attorney and others for the family is why didn't the jail staff the armor? folks just Send them to the to a hospital and take it away from their hands and their problems. So take it away Yeah, so there's still a lot of things we're looking into and my co-worker Nicole manna at the tributary has been digging in deeper and deeper into some of the problems with armor correctional and the medical care at The jail, but lately what we've been trying to show is how much JSO should have already known about armor correctional before they ever privatized their medical care in 2017 2017 after then Sheriff Mike Williams had taken over Mike Bruno as corrections director They signed a deal to privatize away the the medical care and hire this outside group armor correctional Would hire Tony Baceli as their lobbyist already armor had developed a reputation for its poor care across the country And when they re-signed that contract last October under interim sheriff Ivy at that point they'd been criminally convicted in another state They had been removed by most sheriffs in Florida who had initially hired them because of the poor care in their counties and because Many of those sheriffs including our neighboring baker sheriff said they were lying to them They were misleading they were they were withholding information from sheriffs And they were doing the bare minimal amount of care they could and billing as much as possible from taxpayers Yet despite all of this being known widely by sheriffs across the state the Jacksonal sheriff's office signed a lengthy extension that amounts to more than 90 million dollars total over the course of the contract with armor correctional to continue handling the medical care and Now what they've said is that they did order the heart transplant Anti-rejection medication for Dexter Berry with that it would take at least 48 hours plus an extra I think four to six hours, so they're saying at minimum It's going to take two and a half days to get medication that these recent transplants Recipients need to take three times a day and you don't take in your recent transplant recipient Your body's going to reject that transplant there Friday arrest Monday release at that point with two and a half days of these Without these meds. It's too late in a matter what happens That's where the cardiologist that we've spoken to have said is that by that point It's too late. Your body has already now started to reject this heart that he waited 10 years on a transplant list to get And you know you got to think of how much effort goes into you know when Mayo clinic or any other hospital is doing a heart transplant And then to go into a jail. That's not ready to deal with the specialized medical needs And for him, especially the the other question is why he was even arrested in the first place for Something that was so minor as he and a neighbor were arguing over the neighbor not paying for Wi-Fi that that mr. Berry was providing and at he said, you know, I'm gonna beat you up using a profanity If you don't pay But both men were handicapped and elderly it did not seem like a very legitimate threat and the police officer Arrives and decides he needs to take away mr. Berry and arrest him on this charge and that ends up Amounting to what seems like a death sentence Based on the lack of medication that he received and what we hear is that even if his girlfriend had been able to Go back in the house and get the meds the jail policy does not allow you to drop it off because the jail Maybe rightly so it doesn't know what's in that container But the officer apparently was sympathetic enough to try to talk to the supervisor and the logic says maybe that Officer could have gotten someone To go back to the house with mr. Berry in the backseat going It's in this room and get it and it worse there would have been a few hours delay So let's open this up in a dual case is like, you know, it's own. There's a lot of complexity, right? Oh, yeah issue is when you're dealing with privatized, you know medical care in it in a Prison or a jail and armor obviously has contracts across the country and across the state But they're dealing with a very transient population They're dealing with a very unhealthy population and they're trying to cut costs And one thing that you've seen in other areas around the country is that there's been these short-term issues with armor administering medicine quickly and often people are coming in and out of the jail if they don't have to administer meds Immediately it can be a money-saving thing. And so it's not necessarily They're making that calculation But they certainly are every time that they have to decide whether they're going to administer a medicine or not that person Could be gone or discharged or bonded up by the time that they actually receive the medicine that they I mean Logically you have a private medical care Contracts coming in saying we can be cheaper than you doing this in-house and we can be a for-profit company that is serving our shareholders are serving our Fiduciary interests while also being cheaper that means they're cutting costs somewhere. They're providing substandard service somewhere They're they're having to find some way to to cheapen what's being given and you're deciding as a city as a Sheriff's office that you're okay with spending less and potentially getting Substandard care well the jail did actually do its own medical care at one point and then it contracted and work with the Department of Health in Florida, but the logic here. I'm being told is that Armor came in and said we can save you millions on the contract and that was the draw And then with lobbying to show that that savings would allegedly happen, but you're right with cost savings comes Problems with service and let me say this if I can real quick My understanding is that the contract did not save money Duvall County had one little lowest cost providing in me Healthcare in the state by far when they brought the contractor in they actually cost went up Yeah, but that's what armor's promise was to everybody. I'm sure correct You know the thing that I I see wrong here is that this is a very I guess Specific prescription. They're not gonna have it on a shelf, right? They're gonna have to order it It's gonna I like I can I can understand why they wouldn't have it readily available Because how many individuals are you gonna get a rest or gonna be arrested who's just had a heart transplant a week before or six Months before so that said something fell through the cracks if this is beyond the scope of your capabilities to your point, Dan Why did someone say hey listen? We don't have this we understand the significance of the health risk Transport them to chance, but yet mr. Barry's attorney says that since announcing this he has heard from another Former inmate who was a transplantee so this is obviously something that should be in the scope of a Subsection of the contract that says if a very specific issue comes in. This is how we handle it exactly because Apparently, there's a lot of deaths that have occurred In jails. In fact last Friday. We got an email from JSO about a patient an inmate sent to a hospital Who then passed away? They call that an incustody death Even though that apparently that person was sent to be hospitalized. I mean you do have to be fair That is a very unhealthy population. They you know, they're they're you know 20-year life expectancy less than the average person, you know And a lot of times people are living in difficult situations when they're incarcerated. They have some addiction issues The bar is pretty high for like the level of care that would be needed to provide, you know for for this very at-risk population But the issue of everything when it comes to our carceral system is that we try to do it on the cheap We want to lock everybody up for crimes But we do not want to pay for the fact that it's very expensive to house someone and care for someone And it's you know, there's there's enormous costs. They're already well beyond health care that are safety issues for people Who work in these facilities? The guards that work there. It's you know, there's a lot of ways that we're cutting costs that are making it less safe And don't forget that many years ago a sheriff decided to cut costs by serving only bologna sandwiches at the Duval County Jail So and I don't I know they don't do that now, but