More than a year after a Goldendale man died by suicide in Klickitat County Jail, county officials have agreed to a large payout and considerable reforms to settle with his estate.
The family of Ivan Howtopat, who died by suicide last year at the jail, will receive $2 million to settle its wrongful death claims against the county. The family contended the jail failed to get medical treatment for the 24-year-old who was struggling with a severe opioid addiction.
Melissa Howtopat, right, pictured with her son Ivan Howtopat in an undated photo. Melissa Howtopat and her husband are raising questions about the Klickitat County Jail after their son died while enduring fentanyl withdrawal.
Courtesy of Melissa Howtopat
“The trauma of Ivan’s death didn’t end with the trauma that Ivan’s family experienced,” said attorney Corinne Sebren, who represented Howtopat’s mother and father. “It was felt throughout the whole community. And the community became really engaged throughout this whole case.”
The monetary settlement is largely covered by Klickitat County’s insurer, the Washington Counties Risk Pool.
The settlement also stipulates that the county change policies to prevent future incidents. The county will change its jail intake policies and add substance use disorder training for corrections deputies, according to the agreement.
Sebren celebrated the mandates for changes in policy. In court, she said, she wouldn’t be able to ask a judge for that sort of remedy.
“It is a binding document for the county. The family, and certainly my firm, will be following up with the county regularly to ensure these terms are met,” Sebren said.
On May 15, 2023, Howtopat was arrested on a felony warrant in the town of Goldendale. According to his family, he had been severely addicted to the drug fentanyl. Records showed he had fentanyl in his system during the stop.
According to jail records obtained by the family’s attorneys, jail staff who screen incoming inmates noted that Howtopat was “hard to wake” when a deputy brought him in. The screening noted his drug dependency.
While in jail, other inmates said Howtopat’s withdrawal symptoms became so severe he asked one fellow inmate to break his arm so jail staff would send him to the hospital.
“He’s like, ‘I just can’t take it in here,’” the inmate later told investigators. “And I said, ‘Dude, just calm down, your worst enemy is your mind.’”
Howtopat ultimately took his own life.
In the family’s filings, they said jail staff should have immediately seen Howtopat’s need for medical treatment. Jail records showed that Howtopat had numerous run-ins with police over the years and occasionally mentioned to officers that he had suicidal thoughts.
In an interview with OPB, Sheriff Bob Songer denied that Howtopat showed any signs of suicidal tendencies during his final incarceration. Songer mostly declined to comment but said, “Our corrections staff did nothing wrong. Period.”
“It’s tough. I feel for the family who lost this young man. But the bottom line is beating up this staff for just doing their job is ridiculous,” Songer said.
Sebren sympathized with the corrections deputies. She called their work “incredibly difficult.”
“This case was never brought by the family to vilify them. It was to seek reform and it was to prevent this from happening again,” Sebren said.
For the sheriff, Howtopat’s case became the first of a succession of blows to his office that led the county to seize responsibility of the jail.
In November 2023 — about six months after Howtopat’s death — a female inmate at the jail became nearly septic before she was sent to the hospital. As OPB first reported, records showed nurses became “aghast” upon seeing her.
The inmate reportedly had bugs on her body and smelled like “dead rotting fish,” a Goldendale Police Department officer reported that night. Nurses who tried to cut her matted hair noted that the “skin on the back of her neck started pulling away from her scalp,” the officer wrote.
Then, in April, county officials began publicly making plans to remove the jail from Songer’s purview. The sheriff oversaw its roughly $700,000 budget, though county commissioners have the final say on all budgets.
The county recently hired a new jail superintendent to run day-to-day operations. Instead of reporting to the sheriff, the superintendent reports directly to the commissioners.