Civil rights advocates in Illinois are demanding answers over the death of a handcuffed Black man following a violent confrontation with county jail deputies who attempted to portray the case as a medical emergency.
Cory Ulmer, 41, died following his 20 June arrest for violating bond conditions as he awaited trial on assault and robbery charges. According to the investigative organization Injustice Watch, a spokesperson for Sheriff Tom Dart at first insisted Ulmer had “suffered a medical emergency”, while personnel from the Cook county sheriff’s office told Ulmer’s stepfather that he died in the hospital.
But an internal sheriff’s office report obtained by the group revealed Ulmer had been beaten, body-slammed by jail deputies and injected with sedatives prior to his death. The report, written by correctional sergeant Enrique Reyes, details “an emergency takedown” of Ulmer by several deputies in a holding cell at the Cook county jail after the inmate allegedly did not comply with verbal orders – and a subsequent visit to the emergency room at the city’s Mount Sinai hospital.
There, the report states, a further violent altercation took place in which Ulmer allegedly head-butted and tried to bite the sergeant, and officers “began utilizing strikes and pressure points to gain compliance”.
His death followed an injection of sedatives into his buttocks by a jail nurse while he was already in handcuffs, the report concludes.
Ulmer’s stepfather, Robert Robinson, accused the sheriff’s office of violating a two-year-old state law that requires authorities to immediately inform families if a loved one dies in custody. He told Injustice Watch that they were first informed when a pair of investigators showed up two days after Ulmer’s death but offered no details.
“They said he got locked up, and he went to the hospital, and unfortunately he didn’t make it,” Robinson said. “That’s all he told me.”
Prior to obtaining the report, Injustice Watch was told by a representative for Sheriff Dart that Ulmer was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai after he “suffered a medical emergency”.
Contacted again Thursday, the spokesperson said “nothing in our initial response … was inaccurate. Mr Ulmer died after suffering a medical emergency.”
But the spokesperson conceded that 11 jail staff had been reassigned following Ulmer’s death – and that an investigation by the Illinois state police public integrity taskforce was under way.
Ulmer was bipolar and had a history of manic episodes, according to his family’s lawyer Jesse Guth, a former county prosecutor, who said relatives were “shocked and outraged” by his death.
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“Cory’s family and the people of Cook county deserve no less than the full truth,” Guth told Injustice Watch.
“He was a son, a brother, a nephew and a cousin. He deserves to be more than a statistic. He deserves justice.”
The investigative group said Ulmer’s death was the first of a person in Cook county custody since December, when a 33-year-old man was found hanging in his cell at the jail’s mental health unit. He was found more than an hour after he was last seen alive by correctional officers, despite a requirement that guards perform checks every 30 minutes, it said.
Earlier in June, Injustice Watch published a report called Dying on Dart’s Watch, which alleged inadequate supervision or medical negligence in more than half of the 18 deaths recorded at the jail in 2023.
Dart refused Injustice Watch’s request for an interview, the organization said.
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