Michael Papp’s body was cold and stiff inside his secluded Cuyahoga County jail cell when a corrections officer finally opened the door. — Officers reportedly walked the pod 50 times, peeking inside cells for signs of life. Yet, somehow, they missed a dead body.
The officer went on to check 19 other cells before sitting down at a phone to call for help. A responding nurse took one look at the body and walked away in apparent frustration. — Jail administrators and staff had once again failed to learn from past mistakes.
Medical neglect, poor monitoring and botched intake screenings have contributed to at least half the jail’s 20 deaths since 2020, according to a Marshall Project – Cleveland analysis. Ina 2025 compliance review of Papp’s case, state investigators called the staff response unacceptable and disgusting. It was evident, one inspector wrote in her scathing notes, that jail leadership hadn’t prepared staff for life-threatening emergencies, as directed in the state’s most recent investigation…