Dustin James Patterson didn’t have to die.
Correctional officer Connor Whitlock was doing the 2 a.m. inmate count in a maximum-security unit at what was then known as the Davis Correctional Facility in Holdenville. Looking inside cell Echo Charlie 103, the officer saw Patterson in the dark struggling for his life.
His cellmate, Darren Padron, had him in a chokehold.
It was 2:14 a.m. The officer reached for his pepper spray and blasted it into the cell. Then he radioed for help, according to an investigative report on the incident.
What happened next on that early morning of Sept. 2, 2022, is documented in two prison videos that show Patterson’s long agonizing death as guards stood outside the cell’s door
“He had his arm wrapped around his neck from the back,” Whitlock would later say in testimony about that night.
Patterson was asking his cellmate over and over to stop, the officer said. “He was clawing at Mr. Padron’s arms and head. Trying to get his arm off of him.”
The at times shaky videos show more and more officers arriving at cell 103. For 45 minutes, they took steps to try to stop the struggle, but only from outside the steel cell door. When they did go in the cell, it was too late.
One officer recorded the events on a handheld camera for 25 minutes, then another officer recorded for 25 more.
About eight minutes into the struggle, Patterson managed to stand for a moment, the first video shows. “Good Lord! Open the door, man!” he pleaded through a narrow window in the cell door.
‘It was totally avoidable’
A review by The Oklahoman of 21 homicides at the medium-security prison in the last four years found Patterson’s death was by far the most preventable.
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