Pubdate: Fri, 15 Mar 2002
Source: Hendersonville Star News, The (TN)
Copyright: 2002 The Hendersonville Star News
Contact:  http://www.hendersonvillestarnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1666
Author: Cheryl Tatum

WIFE DISPUTES REPORT ON INMATE'S DEATH

Tracy Hensley says if her husband had just been taken to the hospital when 
he was arrested on Nov. 7, 2001 instead of to the Sumner County Jail and 
placed in a restraint chair, he would be alive today.

"I will concede my husband did drugs. I'm not going to lie about that. But, 
if he had been taken to the hospital he would be alive right now," Hensley 
said.

Steven Brett Hensley, 33, of Westmoreland, died at the jail while in a 
restraint chair of a cocaine overdose, an investigation conducted by the 
Gallatin Police Department concluded. Sumner County District Attorney 
General Ray Whitley has cleared the county sheriff's department of any 
wrongdoing in Hensley's death - his widow disagrees with that conclusion.

"Anyone who has ever done cocaine or knows about cocaine knows if someone 
is going to overdose it is going to happen within 30 minutes to an hour, 
not five hours later," Hensley says.

Whitley says an analysis done by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation lab 
shows Steven Brett Hensley had a large amount of cocaine in his system, 
enough to kill 10 people. Medical Examiner Charles Harlan ruled the death 
as a cocaine overdose.

However, Hensley's widow says if her husband had received medical attention 
in November, as he had after past arrests, he would not have died in the 
restraint chair.

"The time before when he was arrested he was taken to the hospital and had 
his stomach pumped," she said. Admitting her husband had been arrested 
numerous times, and was addicted to cocaine, Hensley says he should not 
have been treated as "less than human."

Hensley also maintains inmates in the cellblock saw her husband having 
seizures and tried to tell jail employees.
These inmates, she alleges, were never interviewed during the investigation 
and those she talked with said they were afraid to come forward.

Also in question by Hensley is her arrest a month after her husband's death 
by Gallatin police. Hensley says she was arrested in a private car for 
public intoxication and when taken to the jail, she was placed in the same 
restraint chair where he husband died.

"One month almost to the day after my husband died the city police took me 
out of my car and (the jail) put me in that chair for three hours," she says.

Gallatin police records show Hensley was arrested on Dec. 6. 2001 at the 
Triple S Market for public intoxication. General Sessions Court records 
show the charge against Hensley was dismissed after paying court costs of 
$159.

Hensley has retained attorneys from Nashville and says legal action on both 
her husband's death and her arrest will be filed. Sumner County Sheriff 
J.D. Vandercook refused comment on any of Hensley's allegations because of 
possible litigation.

Since Vandercook has been sheriff there have been four deaths in the jail, 
two by hanging, one by natural causes and Hensley's death.
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