ST. LOUIS — With the help of several legal organizations, a 40-year-old City Justice Center inmate with paraplegia received a shower after suing the city, alleging that in the more than 160 days he’s been detained he has not been provided a wheel-chair accessible shower.
On March 26, ArchCity Defenders announced the City has agreed to provide Anthony Tillman with an accessible shower, including the equipment and assistance he needs to safely bathe. Even so, an inspection by Tillman’s legal team revealed that the shower the city provided is actually not ADA compliant.
“Although the physical showers are not ADA-compliant, I am still humbled by the fact that I am at least getting a shower. I still feel like I’m getting retaliated against, because I was brave enough to speak out about the harsh behavior and inhumane practices that go on inside the CJC,” Tillman wrote in a media release.
The court ordered the city to provide the shower for 14 days. Tillman’s team has since filed a preliminary injunction to extend his access to a shower beyond those two weeks.
Before the lawsuit, filed March 9, Tillman and his lawyers wrote that City Justice Center employees provided Anthony Tillman a wash basin and rag to bathe — but because of his physical disability, Tillman is unable to reach and fully wash his body.
"I just want to be treated fair, like how everyone else is supposed to be treated,” Tillman wrote in the ACD release at the time the suit was filed. “I am disabled and I want to be accommodated. I'm speaking out and telling my story because if someone else who is paraplegic finds themself in the same situation, they should not have to experience what I've experienced.”
Tillman requested two things from the court. The first is a temporary restraining order, which would require the city to provide him with an accessible shower. The second is monetary compensation for the emotional distress, pain, and suffering he’s experienced while detained.
In a media release, Tillman expressed his gratitude to the organizations that helped him file the lawsuit. Those include ArchCity Defenders, MacArthur Justice Center, Rights Behind Bars and Saint Louis University Legal Clinics.
“With me taking a stand, hopefully in the future their practices will change and someone else with paraplegia will not have to go through what I went through,” he wrote. “Again, I’m thankful for my attorneys helping me to have my voice heard.”
Tillman’s complaint can be read at https://bit.ly/3eqTCzy.
This lawsuit comes a little over a month after inmates at the City Justice Center protested jail conditions by taking over the majority of the St. Louis City Justice Center’s fourth floor for several hours, smashing windows and setting fires.
Following that uprising, several local advocacy groups asked the city to allow attorneys to inspect the conditions at the City Justice Center. However, the city responded with a resounding “no.”
ArchCity Defenders noted in their media release that Tillman’s suit is illustrative of a much larger problem with the city’s jails.
ArchCity Defenders wrote that they have received hundreds of calls since December and had over 160 conversations with inmates at CJC and the Workhouse and their loved ones about various inhumane conditions such as inclement temperatures, violence and retaliation from jail guards, lack of food, water, and medical care, as well as the absence of COVID-safe protocols.