The death last Wednesday of 31-year-old Josiah G. Pierce was the fifth of a man in custody at a Multnomah County jail this year, the sheriff’s office said Friday.
All five of the deaths occurred in the past 12 weeks.
Kashi Abram Harmon, 53, died June 22. Martin Todd Franklin, 58, died June 16. 31-year-old George Allen Walker died May 13. And Donovan Anthony Wood, 26, died May 2.
In a statement on Friday, Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell said “jails are a microcosm of society,” citing the drug-abuse and mental-health crises, among other factors.
Oregon – and particularly Multnomah County – has been hard hit by the fentanyl epidemic, with a 200% increase since 2020 in fentanyl-related deaths in the state.
No official cause has been determined yet in any of the 2023 deaths at Multnomah County jails. The five deaths – more than typically occur in an entire year in the county’s jails – are being investigated by the East County Major Crimes Team.
The investigations, O’Donnell said, would help the sheriff’s office “answer questions as to why the event happened and assess our response, and our partners’ response, to the emergency.”
The sheriff said “none of the deaths are related or connected to each other.”
— The Oregonian/OregonLive; dperry@oregonian.com
