Family looking for answers after Jackson County Jail inmate dies in custody

JACKSON, Mich. (WILX) - A jail inmate is dead, and his family wants to know why. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office blames an overdose, but the family isn’t buying it.

The Jackson County Sheriff said Dameon Broussard, 33, overdosed on heroin in the jail. His wife said he wasn’t a drug user.

Sheriff Gary Schutte said despite best efforts, heroin still gets into the jail from time to time. He said last year there were eight overdoses among inmates.

But Broussard’s family said they’re frustrated because drugs aren’t supposed to make it past the guards.

“I’m hurt, and I’m angry and I’m upset,” said Dameon Broussard’s wife Sandra.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said Dameon died Monday while in custody, where he’s been for more than a year.

“My husband will do anything for anybody. He loved his family. He loved his son. He loved me. He always tried to help other people,” said Sandra Broussard.

Broussard said she doesn’t believe her husband died from an overdose. Lab tests done at Henry Ford Jackson Hospital said there weren’t drugs in his system.

Sheriff Schutte said that’s because of the effort to save his life. He said Dameon Broussard was given 11 doses of Narcan at the jail before he was taken to the hospital. Schutte said two other inmates overdosed around the same time, including a man in the same cell as Broussard.

“When we treated that inmate with Narcan, and conducted further interviews with that inmate, he told us ‘we had just done heroin,’” said Sheriff Schutte.

Schutte said right now he thinks drugs came in from two different sources. He added screening for drugs is hard at the jail.

“We don’t have a sophisticated scanning device like a lot of jails have, which is something we desperately need,” said Schutte.

A device that could’ve ended up saving Broussard.

“He was coming home. He was coming home. And now I’ll never be able to see him again,” said Sandra Broussard.

The family said Broussard was scheduled to be released in a couple of months.

The Jackson Police Department is investigating how exactly the heroin made it into the jail.

This is the second inmate who died while at a Jackson County Jail in the last year. Stephion Demeco, 41, died on July 12. The sheriff said that was from natural causes.

Read: Man in isolation cell at Jackson County Jail dies

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