Ivan Howtopat, Sheriff Songer and the Klickitat County Jail post-settlement

Sebren and the Howtopat family moved to file a $20 million lawsuit against Klickitat County in January 2024, asserting the county failed to adequately care for Ivan from initial medical screenings to the cell he slept in, and was complicit in his death — either through “reckless disregard or deliberate indifference,” the tort claim alleged. As for the report Songer cited, compiled by the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office shortly after Howtopat’s death, Sebren said it was far from thorough.

When officers with the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office originally arrested Howtopat, a Goldendale resident and a citizen of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, they confiscated drug paraphernalia on his person and reported he was “hard to wake” as the booking process began. Sebren said Howtopat had run-ins with the Klickitat County Jail before, and that his personal file documents past incidents of attempted suicide.

Once Howtopat was lucid enough one day later, he completed a risk assessment form, indicating his fentanyl dependency to the booking officer, who had not completed training on basic medical and operational procedures. At one point, Howtopat’s withdrawal symptoms became so severe that he asked a cellmate to break his arm so jail staff would send him to a hospital.

“Inmate Howtopat had no indications of any medical issues nor any mental health concerns,” Detective Jeremy Schultz wrote in his June 2023 report. The Skamania County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to Columbia Gorge News for additional comments.

Apart from that sentence, and an interview with Howtopat’s cellmate who noted he was “coming down” from fentanyl and expressed suicidal thoughts, including “hanging,”, the report dives no further into Howtopat’s substance use or mental health problems. It also doesn’t examine a slew of jail policies that Sebren said caused Howtopat’s preventable death at the age of 24.

“They never put him on suicide watch. They never brought in any kind of mental health or behavioral health folks to properly screen him for suicide risk. They never medically treated his withdrawal appropriately,” said Sebren. “On top of that, he was in a cell that wasn’t suicide resistant.”

The jail’s protocol on treating opioid withdrawal was less than 60 words when Howtopat died, and by neglecting to give him any medication, staff violated standards established by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare, according to Sebren. Further, the jail had no qualified, on-site providers to perform medical screenings, administer treatment or respond to urgent situations, relying on a physician assistant based nearly two hours away in Vancouver who Sebren said is not a correctional medicine specialist.

Loren Culp, then jail chief appointed by Songer, didn’t have any training or experience in correctional environments either, the tort claim alleged. Howtopat was also held in a single person cell behind a nearly solid door that prevented direct view of safety checks, a policy then and still prohibited under federal law. In his report, Shultz noted he could access the air vent Howtopat used to hang himself “with ease.”

“It is clear that Commissioners Lori Zoller and Jake Anderson were completely WRONG when they BLAMED Klickitat County Jail Correctional Deputies, Chief Jail Deputy and the Sheriff for Ivan Howtopat suicide death,” Songer wrote in a press release.

“There was never a time that I blamed Sheriff Songer or his office for Ivan Howtopat’s death. Sheriff Songer is just wrong and I am not quite sure where this statement by the sheriff is coming from or what he intends to accomplish with such a statement,” Zoller said over email.

In November 2024, Klickitat County agreed to pay the Howtopat family $2 million to settle their wrongful death claims and take a variety of actions to prevent future incidents. Six months after Howtopat’s death in 2023, Paulette George, who is also Indigenous, was transferred from the Klickitat facility to a hospital because she was covered in bugs and smelled “like dead rotting flesh,” according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

“A $2 million settlement doesn’t occur unless there are very serious breaches of the standard of care,” said Sebren.

During a Klickitat County Commissioners meeting in April, Songer announced he was pursuing a public records disclosure to receive the Skamania County report. But in the opening paragraph, Shultz wrote, “A copy of this report as well as supporting documents will be forwarded to the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office,” and Zoller confirmed that occurred.

Reforming the Klickitat County Jail

After considering closing the jail and contracting with the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities in The Dalles, Klickitat County Commissioners seized the 49-bed operation from the sheriff’s office and eventually placed it under the control of a newly-formed Department of Corrections in December 2024, with Chief Jail Administrator Bill Frantz at the helm.

“While adherence to a settlement is important and I will absolutely meet those benchmarks, it’s equally important to me to fix something that I know I can fix now,” said Frantz. “It’s about bringing normality and humanity into incarceration.”

During a tour of the jail, Frantz told Columbia Gorge News the county had not provided him with the specific conditions of the Howtopat settlement; however, Frantz has already met some of those terms without the details.

Under Songer’s control, the jail’s intake and medical screening process included no questions about medical history, previous or current medications and mental health conditions, according to an operational review completed by Island County Chief Jail Administrator Jose Briones. He also noted that correctional officers passed out medications to all people in custody without formal training on the process, and that medications were not accounted for properly.

Now, every person who enters the jail must answer 43 questions, drawn from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, that range from allergies and heart problems to substance use and suicidal thoughts. Reclassification occurs each month to track behavioral changes as well. Frantz is also pursuing a $2.2 million grant that would allow inmates to continue or start substance abuse medications while incarcerated and connect inmates with a healthcare provider upon their release.

“A lot of people don’t know that I can decline people coming into my jail. If they’re not fit for confinement, they’re not coming in,” he said.

While not yet done, Frantz plans to have all correctional officers complete trainings on suicide detection and prevention, medical first aid, and defensive control tactics, though the settlement expressly stipulates training on crisis intervention and substance use disorder with the state Criminal Justice Training Commission. Correctional officers have completed the appropriate trainings on conducting the intake process and distributing medications.

Frantz also collaborated with the same Vancouver-based physician’s assistant to rewrite the jail’s opioid withdrawal protocol, but apart from two days a month, there’s no medical provider on the premises, which Frantz said isn’t feasible because of the jail’s limited budget.

Although the settlement directs the jail to offer “on-call and on-site medical services” without stating a particular frequency for visits, the Howtopat family made clear that hiring a local provider is essential during the settlement discussions, according to Sebren. Telehealth services are available at any time, though, and upgrades are coming to improve monitoring of high-risk inmates.

Frantz intends to retrofit three booking cells and two pods (four single person holding cells connected by a group living space) with sensors that can remotely monitor important vital signs, like heart and respiratory rates, along with cameras. While the solid doors remain, Frantz said those systems will enhance response times with a limited staff, and he’s looking forward to an upcoming audit of the jail, performed by a qualified organization outside of Washington, as mandated by the settlement sometime this year.

“I hope it’s a very complex audit done by multiple teams because, while I’m here, I’ll always continue to grow,” said Frantz. “Somebody finding something that I can do better only benefits the community and mitigates liability.”

Zoller emphasized that the county’s prosecuting attorney and the Washington Counties Risk Pool, which insures Klickitat County, have kept Frantz informed and on track regarding the settlement.

“There was no need for Mr. Franz to have a complete copy of the [settlement] as much of the document did not pertain to the work he is accomplishing,” said Zoller over email. “Continual progress is being made under the guidance of Administrator Frantz.”