Family files $20 million claim against Klickitat County over son’s suicide

Editor’s note: This story contains discussions of suicide. If you or someone you love is considering self-harm, support is available 24 hours a day at the national suicide crisis lifeline. Just call 988.

The family of a Klickitat County, Washington, man who died by suicide in jail last spring is gearing up to file a wrongful death lawsuit.

Melissa and Donovan Howtopat claim the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office neglected their son, Ivan Howtopat, while he was in custody and enduring fentanyl withdrawal. They said “inadequate medical screening” failed to catch warning signs he could be a suicide risk.

He was found hanging in his cell on May 20.

His family and an attorney, Corinne Sebren, wrote in an 11-page tort notice that several shortcomings in the jail’s policies and the training of corrections deputies led to his death.

“Ivan’s death was completely unnecessary and could have been easily prevented via provision of even the most basic care and suicide prevention mitigation efforts,” the notice reads.

The 24-year-old was experiencing so much discomfort that he asked a fellow inmate to break his arm so jail staff would send him to the hospital, records show.

In the claim, the family repeatedly lays blame on the sheriff’s office, which oversees the jail. They also accuse the county leadership broadly — “administrators, supervisors and policymakers” — of failing to keep the jail safe.

Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer, who is named in the notice, declined to comment due to the potential lawsuit. Loren Culp, a former conservative political candidate whom Songer appointed last year to lead the county jail, is also named in the notice.

Both men are part of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a far-right group that believes local county sheriffs hold authority over even state and federal governments in deciding which laws are “constitutional.”

Sebren, the family’s attorney, said the potential lawsuit is seeking to hold the county and the sheriff’s office accountable for Ivan Howtopat’s death.

“You have untrained and unsupervised, incompetent people running the jail. People are going to die,” Sebren said. “They certainly aren’t holding themselves accountable, so Ivan’s family is going to at least try.”

Northwest jails have long posed a risk to people in fragile physical and mental health, according to a 2019 investigation by OPB and the Northwest News Network. Those risks have only risen in recent years due to rising opioid abuse in the region.

In the claim, the Howtopat family plans to seek $20 million in damages. A tort notice is often a precursor to lawsuit, unless the parties reach a settlement.

The family contends the jail’s policies are out-of-date, specifically those that address drug withdrawal and suicide risks. They also say that they can’t find proof the corrections deputies who handled Ivan Howtopat’s intake had been trained on those policies.

Ivan Howtopat had been “hard to wake” when a deputy brought him into the jail on suspicion of violating his parole and resisting arrest. Jail staff didn’t complete his medical screening until after he spent the night in jail.

When they did complete the forms, jail staff reportedly answered “no” to questions about whether Ivan Howtopat was under the influence of drugs or acting strange. He had a documented history of drug use — detectives confiscated a pipe at his arrest — as well as threats of suicide.

Jail staff eventually placed him in a segregated cell with “known suicide risks,” such as a bed sheet and a sturdy, uncovered air vent within reach, according to the claim. The cell door itself was solid and “prevented direct view safety checks,” the claim reads.

After discovering Ivan Howtopat, jail staff provided what the claim describes as inadequate chest compressions. A Washington state trooper who arrived wrote in his reports that a corrections officer was compressing “far too quick and (I) advised him to slow down.”

Before his arrest, Ivan Howtopat struggled with addiction but was still a “relatively healthy man,” the tort claim states and he “enjoyed an extremely close and loving relationship with his parents and family.”

Beyond the tort claim, Ivan Howtopat’s death is making its way to the Washington Statehouse. State Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, recently proposed a bill called “Ivan’s Law” that proposes efforts to stem the rise in fatal overdoses from opioids.

Ivan’s Law would offer grants to rural hospitals to improve fentanyl testing, commission a report about the dangers of fentanyl residue in close spaces, require jails to help recently released inmates seek treatment, and launch a public awareness campaign called “Not Even Once.”

“Ivan’s mom Melissa used to say to him ‘Not Even Once,’” Mosbrucker told OPB. “She remembers Ivan saying, ‘I didn’t know that if I used it only once that I would be in this state.’”